A Kick to Canada's Collective Gut

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Over a fine Chinese lunch, a friend of mine in this polyglot city, who was born and reared in Ottawa, assured me a few days ago that whatever discomfort he and his countrymen were feeling from failing to Own the Podium of their own Olympics would be assuaged by success in a single sport.

"We just care," Brian Wood, a literary agent, told me with a dismissive chuckle between stabbings of vegetarian pot stickers, "about hockey."

Indeed, it was reported on Monday that more Canadians -- 10 million plus -- watched their guys on Sunday play the U.S. team in hockey than viewed any televised game in history. Some Canadian fans who attended the match said they forked over $1,000 for tickets that were $80 face value. Some ticket buyers slept in line overnight outside the arena to get the last tickets to be sold to the public.

Group masochism would've been less painful and certainly not as expensive. Canadians could've found someone to beat them over the head collectively for free.

For what this hockey-crazed country witnessed was its team fall, extremely unexpectedly, 5-3 to the Americans south of its border.

There were no reports available Monday, however, about how many Canadians renounced their citizenship. But Martin Brodeur did have his spot as Canada's starting goalie rescinded after coughing up the first four to further dampen spirits from British Columbia to Newfoundland. He was replaced by Roberto Luongo.

The Great White North has been overcome by a Great White Fright.

"There's substantial panic among the populous," longtime Canada hockey commentator Al Strachan told me Monday about his brethren.

He was talking about fans characterized by two guys I saw going to the game, both outfitted from helmet to skates in full Canada hockey team gear, including pads and brandishing sticks.

The Globe and Mail headline on Monday screamed "Woe Canada." The Vancouver Province printed "Damn Yankees."

What the U.S. men's hockey team pulled off Sunday evening may have set off great celebration in the states, but what it set off in Canada moved the Richter scale quite a bit more, I can assure you. This is a country on the verge of needing mass therapy.

It was overstatement to compare the U.S. victory over Canada to the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y., when the U.S. upset the Soviet Union. There wasn't a medal on the line Sunday. The loser wasn't eliminated. Political and economic systems weren't butting heads

It would be fair, however, to say that what happened to Canada to the U.S. in these Olympics would be akin to Dream Team II, the second edition of the U.S. NBA star-studded Olympic basketball team, losing a game on its home court in the '96 Summer Games in Atlanta.

What happened was a possibility but it wasn't supposed to be a reality.

"We like to think we own hockey," Strachan said, echoing words heard in the states about basketball. "We're not accustomed to seeing our hockey team embarrassed."

Canada's team wasn't embarrassed on Sunday. It was outplayed. It was stoned by a hot goalie in the U.S.'s Ryan Miller.

It was embarrassed, however, by what Sunday meant. It already needed a shootout to get by the Swiss. If Canada intends to win any medal in this Olympic tournament it must top Germany on Tuesday or its players can pack their bags and scatter back to their respective NHL clubs.

If it gets past Germany, they must play Russia in the quarterfinals. That was supposed to be the gold-medal match. Canadians were certain of it.

Now, their hockey players, the vanguard of their Olympic movement, are looking like their other athletes, the skiers and sliders skaters -- slip, slipping away.

Globe and Mail columnist Roy MacGregor opined on Monday amidst the mourning that Olympic gold has become the standard for hockey success in Canada.
The Olympics have become Canada's last stand for supremacy in its greatest sport, which much of the rest of the northern hemisphere now plays. They can't afford to lose any more face.
"There is a sense, strongest in Canada," he wrote, "that the Olympic gold medal in hockey is supplanting the Stanley Cup.

"The Stanley Cup, after all, is the only professional team sports championship in which fan interest is in decline at the season's supposed climax. Northerners, in particular, dislike losing their spring evenings and Sunday afternoons to a winter activity.

"Canadians also have not seen a Stanley Cup parade since 1993 and the fiscal reality of today's game -- where the truly elite players can dictate where they live and play -- means the next Cup could well take forever."

In other words, the Olympics have become Canada's last stand for supremacy in its greatest sport, which much of the rest of the northern hemisphere now plays. They can't afford to lose any more face.

Strachan recalled how The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, assembled a gold-medal winning Olympic team in Salt Lake City but was pilloried when it got off to a lackluster start. Gretzky's team at the Turin Games in 2006 failed to medal and Steve Yzerman is running the Canada team at these Olympics.

"They want to win, and they really want to do well and things are taking a little bit of time to settle down," Yzerman told a worried Canada media on Monday of his team, their team. "In general, that's been our history as a national team for some reason -- it takes a little time to get going and get it figured out.

"I really feel our team has done a lot of things much better with each game," he said.

They won, their needed a shootout and they lost. That looks like regression to me.

"There will be some recrimination if they don't medal," Strachan assured. "This time it will be Yzerman.

"The flags will be at half-mast," he said. "It will be really bad."

Aw Canada.