Friday, September 10, 2010
   
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Its Not Whether you Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game (or, we finished second)

Written by Peter McGrath

I applaud the recent victory by the U.S. team at the WJHC. They were a great team with great talent and played an up tempo, exciting brand of hockey. More importantly, every interview I saw with an American player or coach showed them to be a classy, respectful team worthy of representing the U.S.A.  and, the title, World Champions. Nonetheless, before my fellow Canadians fans begin the usual self-flagellation that follows a loss at an international hockey event a little perspective is in order.  Steven Stamkos, John Tavares ,  Matt Duchene ,  Evander Kane,  Ryan O'Reilly ,  James Wright, Michael Del Zotto and Tyler Myers were all eligible for the Canadian team and, but for their respective NHL commitments, did not play. I hate to play what if but…WHAT IF!? Playing what if does not negate the fact that Canadians can’t assume the wins will keep on coming perpetually. We must realize that hockey is an international sport and that fans from other countries love the game as much as we do. We have been spoiled by the success of the Canadian junior teams at the WJHC year after year. We have also been spoiled by the availability of year round ice surfaces in Canada that make it fairly easy for Canadian kids to take up the sport. Funny, the Winter Classic was first conceived as a celebration of Canada’s hockey heritage. You know, catalogues for shin pads and frozen horse manure for pucks. Truthfully, how many Canadians under 55 or 60 have actually played a game of hockey with poop for a puck.  Not me, and I’m no spring chicken. The early 60s saw a dramatic increase in the construction of hockey arenas in preparation for Canada’s centennial. Most middle age Canadian men spent much of their respective childhoods playing on artificial surfaces. This is not the experience shared even today by kids playing hockey in Russia and the former eastern block countries. Kids over there still often grow up playing hockey outdoors in sub zero temperatures. I might even suggest that a young Russian boys’ route to the NHL is far tougher than the current Canadian experience and requires a love and devotion for hockey that at least matches any Canadians’. The reality is that shear demographics and the rapid growth of hockey world wide, makes it likely that Canada will be surpassed as the pre-eminent hockey nation in the not-to-distant future. We better learn to lose now because, just like the U.K. in soccer, it’s going to happen much more frequently down the road.

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