The "Canadian Hockey" Rant

The defending champion Canadian men's hockey team is now out of the Olympics after a 2-0 loss to the Russians today. And the fact of the matter is they simply didn't deserve to win. The Russians were a better team. And even though they beat the Czechs 3-2 yesterday - only due to the heroics of Martin Brodeur in goal - the Canadians didn't deserve to win that game either. And they definitely deserved their loss to the Finns on Sunday. Worst of all, they even lost to the lowly Swiss 2-0. I mean, this is a team that scored no goals whatsoever in 11 of the final 12 periods they played in this tournament (and 2 of the 3 they did score in the first period against the Czechs yesterday were really soft goals). The simple reality is that the Canadians sucked!

And here's something that's certainly not a very popular opinion here in Canada, but one I've been expressing throughout the past decade, especially back in the late-90's when the Czechs were consistently kicking our butts at all levels of international play: "Canadian hockey" is simply boring hockey when you compare it with the skills and speed of the Czechs and the Russians (and the Swedes and the Finns and Slovaks). Who wants to watch the puck dumped into the corners play after play after play? I mean how boring can you get?! The Czechs and Russians pass the puck around and move it right towards the net. It's fun to watch. And, at least in this tournament, it's not only much much more entertaining, it's also clearly a lot more successful. And that's a fact!

The Canadian women, on the other hand, play a great game of hockey. Their gold medal game was lots of fun to watch and 3 of their 4 goals in that game were beautiful passing plays. Now that's the "Canadian Hockey" we want to see!!

The only great thing for the Canadian men was the fantastic play of Martin Brodeur, who was once again amazing, as he has been over the years for Canada. He was especially good in the final two games, both of which Canada could have been blown out of if it wasn't for Brodeur.

So, the Finns seem like the team to beat in this tournament. They're now at 6 wins and no losses and they're simply playing great as a team. But, even though the Czechs haven't been playing all that great in all their games, I'm still cheering for them because I love the way they play the game - they simply play the most exciting hockey. Go Czechs go!!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the old Canadian hockey played by the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr or Guy Lafleur here. No, they knew how to play exciting hockey! They certainly didn't play today's game of Dump and Chase: dump it in and go for the big hit in the corner, play after play after play. But that's exactly what the Canadian men's Olympic team and most teams in the NHL play nowadays and it's simply not all that exciting (though this year's NHL is a vast improvement over what they'd been playing the past 10 years or so).

This style of play, with its emphasis on hitting over stick skills, is, it could be argued, largely the fault of that buffoon Don Cherry. A whole generation of Canadian kids has grown up listening to Cherry's idiotic ravings against skilled European play and fanatical promotion of hitting, hitting, hitting. But that's a whole other rant.

As I've written before, I loved watching Lafleur, Gretzky and Lemieux play back in the '70's and 80's. They played much more like the Europeans have always played. Lots of skill, lots of carrying the puck all the way to the goal, lots of beautiful passing, etc. Didn't see any of that with this group on Team Canada. And, of course, that has a lot to do with the coaching, which was clearly all about playing dump-in hockey. Does anyone really find dump-chase-and-hit hockey exciting? I'd rather watch Lemieux and Jagr's early-90's Penguins or the 1980's Oilers or the 1970's Canadiens... or the Czechs or the Russians or the Swedes right now. There are facts in this world. Reality is reality. And the simple truth and reality of the matter is that the Europeans play a much more entertaining and exciting game of hockey.

Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006