Canucks Lose!

In what is generally considered a dark day in Canada's sporting history, our national hockey team ended their Olympic experience today out of the medals. As defending gold-medal champions, the Canucks were widely touted as a favourite to repeat, alas, they failed to even score in three of their six games. And, the experts tell us, you can play up to seventeen overtime periods, but so long as you fail to score, you will not win!

We have now begun a period of country-wide hand-wringing and recrimination over this debacle. This will last no less than four years—until the next Olympics. At that time, with fresh players (and probably fresh management), we will endeavour once again to defend our nationhood in the Canadian religion of hockey.

For myself, I feel no such compulsion. Naturally, I was cheering for our team to win, but I have long been a hockey fan, rather than a team fan. As a result, I have become a fan of the way the Finns are playing. They absolutely dominated Canada in every aspect of the game when they played last week. In fact, the four teams left (Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Sweden) have all displayed a more pleasing brand of hockey than our guys were playing. So, I shall enjoy the remaining hockey games, and I won't be upset no matter the results. But, for the record, I'll be cheering for Finland in the semi-final, and in the gold medal game on Sunday!!