Now that was close!
It’s January 3rd, 2012 and if you don’t know what I am talking about in my title for today’s writings, then you aren’t Canadian. Either that or you were really asleep or possibly even out of the country and in the deepest darkest parts of Africa.
If you don’t know what it is I’m talking about, then let me enlighten you. Tonight was the semi-final game of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Tournament. Tonight’s game brought back an age old classic match-up between Canada and Russia. Sadly the Canadian squad got down early and often in the game going into the last half of the 3rd period. Canada, through much their own fault, was down 6-1. That’s when Team Canada scored a goal to make it 6-2 and I tweeted: “kafnewell – Cue the comeback #2012wjc #Canada #tsn“
And sure enough the comeback was on. In lightning quick fashion the Canadians came storming managing to make it 6-5 going into the last few minutes of the game. The Canadians were pressing hard and showing the grit and determination they needed. Unfortunately, it was too little too late. Perhaps had the Canadians started the game with that kind of determination the result would have been different. Sadly, too many players spent too much of the game coasting and waiting for someone else to do the work. There seemed to be quite a few passengers on Team Canada tonight. It was very evident on the Russian 6th goal where the Canadians sat back and watched what should have been a regular rush turn into an odd man rush with a scoring chance that lead to a goal. Pair that up with a really bad line change that left hockey connoisseurs shaking their heads, and the game was not going well for the Canadian Team. Take away those 2 mistakes and the outcome might have been considerably different. but those mistakes were indicative of the play through the first 2.5 periods, and at this level you should not be able to win by sleeping your way to the last half of the 3rd period. And it was proven you couldn’t.
A really bad part of the game, in my opinion, was the fact that the Russian keeper was chased from his net after practically standing on his head for the most part of the game. 4 minutes in the 3rd period spelled the end of his time between the pipes. It was a poor end to an absolutely fantastic night for the Russian net-minder.
Perhaps it is a good thing for Canadian Hockey to lose a tournament every so often, and even more so by not making it to the Gold Medal game for the first time in 10 years. Perhaps it can wake a few people up within Hockey Canada and prevent the suits from resting on their laurels too much. It also can’t be bad for the game as a whole when different teams get to compete for gold and it’s not always Canada. That can only help development of hockey in other countries. Not to mention it has to help ticket sales for next year’s tournament, which is being held in Russia. Canadians will come out to the tournament in droves no matter what. for the tournament to really mean something, we need to see people in the stands from other countries. It would be great to see this tournament sell out in other countries and not just here in Canada. Now I’m not sure if TSN agrees with these sentiments …
Oh yeah, and today marked the first full day back at work and school for my family.
