No, Canada

The hypocrisy is unbelievable to me. Although, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the Canadian media's quickness to jump down the collective throat of the men's Olympic hockey team.

We went through this in 1998. Nagano, Japan. A loss to the Czech Republic left the Canadians without a gold medal and everyone in this country lambasting Hockey Canada, fretting about the future of the sport in our country and going so far as to suggest that the sport needed an overhaul from the youngest levels. How else would we ever compete with the rest of the world, after all, if we didn't start from the ground up and improve this old jalopy?

Then, 2002 happened. The psyche of the Canadian hockey fan was repaired by an inspirational and glorious run to gold that ended with the perfect storm, a chance to beat the U.S. in the gold-medal game on American soil. We were back on top, Wayne Gretzky was deified for his part in putting together the championship team and Hockey Canada was lauded for (suddenly) being the brilliant minds of the international hockey world.

Now, here we are in 2006, the Canadians have suffered a devastating quarter-final loss to Russia on Wednesday that eliminated them from a tournament they had been favoured to win. And, right on cue, the national media, the talking heads all over television have jumped on board to once again pose the question no one should be asking.

"Why?"

If we are to be truthful with ourselves, just as we're not as bad as everyone thinks here in 2006, we weren't as good as everyone thought in 2002. Differences? Yes. Night and day? No. Different circumstances, different players, different performances, but still the same old Canada: Good enough to beat anyone on any given day, competing with teams capable of the same.

Lance Brown, on CTV Newsnet, (I have no idea what his credentials as a hockey analyst are seeing as how I have never seen him anywhere near a hockey broadcast), did his best to speak for Canadians and suggested that Hockey Canada needs to better address the preparation of these players prior to coming to the tournament.

He says, and I paraphrase, these players have very little time together, the NHL season goes right up to the Olympics, they're put on a plane and then expected to jell, and we just can't have that and hope to be competitive.

Now, Lance's comments would not be without merit if it weren't for the oh-so-slight oversight that this is in fact what every team in this tournament was forced to do. Canada isn't the only team in the Oly tournament that had NHL players. Seems to me Russia has handled this adversity quite well. Sweden also. And Finland? No worries for them. In fact, you could argue that Canada has it even better than the overseas teams because they can at least get on the ice together prior to the NHL season starting. But pardon me, I'm nit-picking.

Lance also goes on to point out — when asked what he would have done (because that's what we're all thinking) — that the defence wasn't very good. The defence, along with goaltender Martin Brodeur of course, that gave up six goals in three games. Let's be frank, shall we? If you are holding teams to two goals per contest, you will have a chance to win a lot of games. Let's not suggest that our defensive core let us down, because nothing could be further from the truth.

What is accurate is the Canadians scored three goals in their final three games and went scoreless in 10 of their last 11 periods of hockey. They never clicked, they never seemed invincible and, in fact quite the opposite, they looked utterly beatable at every turn.

Lance also was so kind to point out that — news flash everyone — playing Olympic hockey and NHL hockey is quite different. When you put on that maple leaf, blah blah blah ... Insinuating in no uncertain terms that the Canadian players just never got that "umph" from wearing the red and white, while other teams did.

Baloney. Never suggest an athlete "didn't get it" or didn't compete with a fervour to win especially when they are doing it for their country and especially when that country is Canada where you could stand to be be-headed if you don't score a couple goals and register a plus in the plus-minus rating. It is an ignorant stance to ever say "they just didn't want it," and it's one that is most often taken up by the people on the sidelines. The ones who talk about the games, rather than competing in them.

And what is more accurate — just as it was in 1998 and 2002 — is the other countries are pretty damn good. (Well, except for the U.S. this year, they were gawd-awful and if any nation needs to analyse its position in hockey, it is the Americans. But I digress).

Why is it we have such a hard time computing this? Has Sweden, Finland, Russia, the Slovaks, the Czechs et. al. suddenly snuck up on us? Were we not aware that there is a tonne of good hockey teams and hockey players throughout the frozen world?

What's more, can we not simply accept — like any team from any sport playing in any tournament — we just didn't bring our A-game this time around? You hear constantly players saying we just didn't get it done during NHL games, NBA playoffs, the World Series, heck, even the World Poker Tour I would wager, yet our loss here somehow equates to a massive failure on all levels of the Canadian hockey heirarchy?

However, a setback on the sports' greatest stage will invariably bring all the so-called experts back to the fore to once again, quite self-righteously, proclaim all that is wrong with hockey in Canada and the people who are involved with it. We are far from reasonable when it comes to our hockey.

In Canada we have an expecation that we are the best in the world at hockey and, y'know what, we basically are. Calgary's loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2004-05 Stanley Cup was portrayed by some as the U.S. beating Canada for our country's holy grail of trophies. Suggested, of course, by some who didn't apparently look at the nationalities on the rosters of both teams. The success of our nation in the sport is not determined by one result every four years. It is determined more by the thousands of quality players we continually churn out, the consistent success of all teams that wear our maple leaf on the chest (juniors, under-17s, Spenglers, worlds) and — please don't forget — the astonishing success of our women's program.

Ah, the women's team. How quickly we gloss over the 46-2 goals for/against they put up en route to another gold and, more importantly, what that team's success has done for the sport for girls within our borders in the past 15 years.

There should be no second-guessing, there should be no riot acts read and there should be no suggesting that suddenly we've slipped from our perch. Truth be told, it's always been a precarious loft we've sat on at the top of the hockey world and, realistically, we've rarely been there by ourselves.

The fact remains that, despite a disappointing showing in Turin, anyone who chooses to look way up at the top of this hockey tree, will find there will always be plenty of maple leaves.