The Olympics only have a few more days left and one of the major events remaining is the medal round for the men's Ice Hockey. Despite being a native Californian I became a great hockey fan and I actually prefer the Winter Olympics to the Summer games (being only two generations removed from living in Norway probably has something to do with it).
Today if you heard an other-worldly moaning that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, it was probably coming from the north after Canada was eliminated from the medal round in men's hockey by losing to Russia. I'm not Canadian, but I've been there and I've been to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and I understand what hockey means to our northern neighbors. This year Canada had Wayne Gretzky once again as the General Manager and they had a formidable team of veteran players. Unfortunately, even with all the talent they had they were shut out three times, once even by Switzerland (in baseball this would be the equivalent of the New York Yankees losing in the playoffs to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays).
What happened? Well, first of all they made the horrific mistake of having Pat Quinn as the coach. Quinn is a relic who doesn't even understand the new NHL rules. Perhaps thinking it was the 1952 Olympics he tried to win by playing a defensive style game, even though they had stacked their roster with offensive minded players. The loss to Russia provided an excellent contrast between a team that realized Alexander Ovechkin is a great player, who despite his young age, is a guy you have on your team. And the Canadians, who, for some never to be known reason, thought Sidney Crosby, one of the best talents and probably one of the top 10 players in the NHL, despite being a rookie, didn't have the "experience" they wanted (and only brought along Eric Staal and Jason Spezza to watch the games). The choice of the aging Martin Brodeur as the number one goalie was questionable, but he actually played pretty well. Rob Blake is one of my favorite all time players, but, he's no longer able to play elite defense on the International sized rinks (which are considerably larger than the NHL). Todd Bertuzi, a questionable selection, proved how questionable by not scoring at all. Bryan McCabe is another offensive defenseman, who not only didn't score, but led the team in penalties (mainly because he was constantly outskated).
As the head of Team Canada, Wayne Gretzky, accepted the blame for this disaster. Going in, Canada was heavily favored to win the Gold Medal. This probably represents the worst showing in their Olympic history. Gretzky hired Quinn and so the buck stops at the top, but Quinn's game plan, such as it was, doomed the team. Watching the games was almost painful, there was no flow, no attempt at utilizing the talent on the team in a meaningful way. You might think that after one shutout Quinn would make adjustments, certainly after the second shutout he would shift to some kind of offensive plan, but change and adapting is not something Quinn has ever demonstrated as one of his strong points (his NHL coaching this year in Toronto has been laughable, the speed and the new rules seem to have left him entirely mystified, in fact many have speculated that if he were not the Team Canada Coach he might have been fired already). So, in the big game with everything on the line, they were shut out for a third time and like Mighty Casey they were out.
Prof. Swanson,
Happened upon your site through Challies.com's comments section.
A very insightful post on what happened to our hockey team. I think you're bang-on with your assessment. The only thing I would add, to be fair, is that they lost one important defenseman when Scott Niedermayer (who plays in your neck of the woods) decided to have surgery done on his knee. He is a mobile defenseman that we sorely missed. I would also add another name to your list of people who should have been on the team - in which you included Crosby, Spezza and Staal. And that is Dion Phaneuf, a rookie defenseman who plays here in Calgary. He's a hard-nosed defenseman who is having a great year.
Having said all that, you can't win if you can't score, no matter how good our goalie and defensmen are - and that was our undoing. Canada will be in mourning for awhile yet.
I'll be at Shepherds' Conference next week. Very much looking forward to it.
Posted by: Dan Sudfeld at February 24, 2006 9:48 PMThanks, look me up in the library when you are free. The loss of Neidermayer was significant, but I'm not sure that would have overcome the incredibly poor game plan. In many ways the offense was killed because the Canadians were forever killing penalties. Both the Canadian and US Hockey federations need to really rethink their strategies. The US wasn't expected to do much and they exceeded those expectations. The US suffered from poor coaching as well in addition to arrogant players who were apparently more concerned about accomidations and perks for their family and friends than playing hockey.
Posted by: Dennis Swanson at February 24, 2006 10:21 PM