Oh Canada, Prepare for Defeat

Posted by Cynical Sarah on February 21, 2010

There will be no attempts at Olympic sightseeing today for me. Today is all about making sure we’re home to watch the Canada vs. USA hockey game.

It’s not until 4:30 p.m., but you never know when transit is going to glitch or some errand will take a lot longer than planned. The last thing I would want is to be scrambling to find a TV at the last minute to make sure I can watch the game.

You would think it was the gold-medal game by the buzz around it, but really it’s just about pride. The Americans want to win and earn a little international hockey respect. Despite their year of the miracle win and plenty of great players scattered throughout the NHL, most nations count the USA out of serious gold-medal contention. It’s all about the Russians or the Swedes or the Canadians.

Since I’m in Canada, I have no problem cheering on the Canadians as well, and I have to admit since the Sedin twins are my favorite Canuck players, I harbor a small soft spot for the Swedish team too. Today, though, I’m all American.

The Swiss nearly toppled the Canadians, taking it to a shootout. The Slovakians proved the Russians weren’t invincible. Team USA has just as much or even more of a chance at toppling a giant as any of those teams.

They’re best chance is if they can pull together as a team better than Canada can. Sure the Canadians have some top guns of the NHL like Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla and Joe Thornton. But when it comes to Olympic hockey it’s more about getting players to work together as a team. It doesn’t matter how much talent you’ve put together on a team if you can’t get them to gel and play together.

The American team has the advantage of a unifying emotion to bring them together as a team. They all want the respect for American hockey players they think they deserve. That passion to prove everyone wrong will be a strong bond to bring them together as a team.

Canada’s most motivating factor is being on home ice and having pressure to put on a gold-medal performance every game. To me that sounds like a recipe for every top gun on the team trying to shoulder the burden and trying to win the games on their own rather than working with each other to do it. Everyone of them would like to be the national hero that wins it for Team Canada.

And it’s not like Team USA is lacking in its own talent. They’ve got a young, fast team with league leaders such as Patrick Kane, David Backes and Zach Parise.

Plus they’ll have my support – one tiny voice among the hundreds of thousands of Canadian cheerers today. My motives aren’t purely patriotic though. We’ve got tickets to a qualifier playoff hockey game on Tuesday, and Canada needs to lose today for them to have to play in that game. If they win or even win in overtime, they should have enough points to rank in the top four and get a bye into the quarterfinals.

Helper Troy really wants to see Team Canada play, but he’s too Canadian to actually cheer on the opposing teams (especially Team USA) to get his wish. So I’ll do the dirty work for him and support my home team today loud and proud.

Go USA!

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Tags: 2010 Olympics, hockey

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