CBC-Sports

Putting Canadian defeat in perspective

January 6, 2010 05:33 PM | Posted by   Scott Morrison  

In an interesting musing posted earlier today, colleague Mike Milbury stated the pressure on the Canadians to win gold in the world junior hockey tournament "has become ridiculous. Talk about headshots…"

Good line.

And good point.

The pressure on the Canadian juniors to win is immense. There is no doubt about that. But I'm not sure how it can be otherwise.

It doesn't matter what the tournament is, when we assemble our best hockey players and put on the red and white Maple Leaf, we want to win. Who wouldn't? It is the same with the women's national team. That same pressure will exist at the Olympics for both sexes, although it is fair to argue that at least the men are paid professionals and are better suited to deal with that kind of pressure and the potential fall out if they don't win.

Indeed, about the only time we cut our national hockey teams any slack is at the world championships because we know we don't have our best present.

As for the juniors, the pressure may be great and it may not be entirely fair, but that's the way it is. You play to win and when you don't win generally there is disappointment. But I also don't think there is any great angst towards the juniors today for falling short by an overtime goal.

"The disappointment these kids are feeling because of the entitled expectations of Canadian hockey fans is as brutal as any elbow," Milbury goes on to write.

Might they not be feeling disappointed because of their pride and competitive nature, not just because a country gets pumped for a couple of weeks about the tournament and enjoys winning? And there is a big difference between desire to win and entitlement.

Canadians want to be the best at hockey because of our rich history with the game. An average audience of 5.306 million people watched that junior final. Add the audiences for games involving the six NHL Canadian teams and almost 7.3 million watched hockey on Tuesday night. That's roughly a fifth of the country.

It's kind of a big deal around here.

But dating back to 1972, when we almost didn't beat the Russians with our best professionals, we started to understand we weren't the only ones who could play the game well and actually started to learn from other nations. And we have suffered defeat enough internationally with our pros (1981 Canada Cup, 1996 World Cup, 1998 and 2006 Olympics) that we have probably lost any sense of entitlement.

No one is going to Vancouver expecting double gold, but millions are hoping for it.

Even the juniors went seven years without winning gold before they went on the five-year run.

Where Milbury is spot on is that there are really only three or four countries in the junior tournament with a legitimate chance of winning, which might account for any sense of entitlement creeping into the junior mindset, and something has to be done with the format to avoid the 16-0 embarrassments over Latvia scenarios.

And one reason why the Canadian kids want to win so badly is because the Canadian fans care about the tournament like no other country involved, witness the television ratings. The fact they lost is not the worst thing to happen, either. It's offers hope to the other countries, rewards the improvements the Americans have made, and a little humility is not the worst thing for our junior program. It's not good for the tournament, either, to have one team dominate year after year.

Is it a great tournament? Not with the blowouts, but there are certainly great moments within it and the gold-medal game was great entertainment… even in Canadian defeat.

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