Hockey Night in Canada

Last summer, after seven years of "process", I was granted my U.S. citizenship. But when it comes to ice hockey, I am now, always have been and always will be, Canadian. So it is without any conflict that I say that this is going to be a long, dark night for my country.

At about 10:00 p.m. Sunday night, Team U.S.A. defeated Team Canada 5-3 in the final game of the round-robin tournament. While the outcome means little in terms of elimination - neither team could have been eliminated with a loss - it means everything in terms of how Canadians look at themselves. In almost every other aspect we have become accustomed to, as one Canadian journalist described it following a second place finish in women's moguls, "the all-to-familiar feeling of pride mingled with disappointment." A nation of only 33 million, we often find ourselves playing second fiddle to someone bigger, stronger, faster and louder than we are. Usually it doesn't bother us all that much. We smile politely, shake hands and wish ourselves better luck next time. The one place we never expect to have to do that is on the ice. It's our game, we've been good at it for a long time, and we expect to win every time we play. Some people call that unreasonable. We call it identity.

It's bad enough to lose at a game we created, in our own arena, in our own backyard. It's a whole lot worse to lose to a country that cared so much about the outcome of the game that they relegated it to the desert of cable - the only one of NBCs cable channels not available in high definition. Yes, on Sunday night, curling - a sport which America only discovered last Tuesday - got a more prominent spot in the broadcast line-up than ice hockey. I don't have the vocabulary to express how disheartening it is to lose to a country that would rather watch paint dry than watch ice hockey on television.

Watching play over the past week, one thing became painfully obvious. Our miserable seventh place finish in Torino failed to light the fire underneath our team. Two-and-two-thirds of the three games might as well have been played four years ago in Italy. In fact, Canada hasn't played a solid game since Salt Lake City in 2002. It doesn't seem to matter who assembles the team, who coaches the team, or who the players are, the results are the same. The rest of the world caught up to us and we made it easy for them by taking a couple steps backward. Watching Russia play the Czech Republic earlier, and Sweden play Finland afterward, it's pretty easy to see that everyone else is playing the game at a completely different speed than we are. We're being out-skated, out-worked, and killing ourselves with stupid mistakes. For evidence of that look no further than the replay of the empty-net goal scored in the final seconds in which Ryan Kesler out-hustled two Canadian defensemen down the ice to the puck, then out-muscled one of them to put the puck in the net.

It's difficult to figure out exactly what has gone wrong with Canadian hockey. The easy answer would be that we just aren't as talented as the other teams we play against. But this is a case in which the easy answer is probably not the correct one. There's no shortage of talent on this team. The captain and assistant captain are both Stanley Cup champions, along with several others, most notably one of the most decorated goaltenders in the history of the National Hockey League. Nor is the team too old, as was one complaint against the 2006 squad. The problem appears to be simpler, yet far more daunting than one of size, speed or skill. The look on Sidney Crosby's face after scoring the game-winning goal in the shootout against the Swiss last week said it all. As he skated back to the bench with the deafening roar of a relieved crowd ringing in his ears, the anointed saviour of Canadian hockey looked up at his teammates with disbelief in his eyes, and you could almost hear him say, "How did it come to this?" I can't imagine how hard it must be carry the weight of the expectations of an entire nation on your back. But it doesn't seem as though our guys have broad enough shoulders with which to do it. It looks as though the stage is just too big for them, and they don't know how to tell us that the thing that we believe to be our birthright, is once again out of our reach.

Baring some dramatic turnaround, it is likely that Canada will fail to make the medal round later this week, let alone the podium. I don't say that because they lost one game to a good team. I say that because the math bears it out. Over the past two games, Canada has taken 92 shots on goal (96 if you count the shootout) and scored only 5 goals - a 5.4% shooting percentage. By contrast, on Sunday night alone, the Americans took only 23 shots, yet scored five times, for an efficiency rating of 21.7%. If that trend continues, Canada would have to take more than four times as many shots as their opponent just to keep the game tied. Their next game comes against Germany on Tuesday. While the Germans are far from an ice hockey powerhouse, Canada has already dropped one game and almost lost another to statistically inferior opponents, so nothing can be taken for granted. And even if they pass that that test, the real ice hockey powers will be right there waiting for them to lay another egg like they did Sunday night. Four years ago we sat staring at the television, shaking our heads in disbelief as Bob Costas interviewed a stunned Wayne Gretzky on the verge of tears, trying to explain how Canada had been eliminated from medal contention by a team nobody thought knew how to skate. Here's to hoping we don't find ourselves watching Steve Yzerman sitting in that same chair for a repeat performance.