Good to be Lucky


Back in August when the hockey world awoke from it’s summer slumber I wrote a piece about the ‘ball hockey’ practice and in it I said how I find Olympic hockey to be boring. Well it is and this past tournament all but solidified that opinion for me aside from a few exceptions.

Let’s list the exceptions in order of interest and ‘non-boringness’.
Gold Medal final Women’s- As good a game as you can find anywhere
Quarter Final Men Can vs Lat- unexpected drama due to goalie performance
Round Robin- Rus vs USA- great game with bad ending under gaze of Putin
Semi-final Can vs USA- tactical system battle in 1-0 game

That’s it. For a best-on-best tournament in two genders we had a whopping 4 games with some drama, intrigue and interesting play. Notice I didn’t even put in the gold medal game? Yawn….

Take away the jubilant feeling of winning gold- that is the result not the experience- and that game was over after Canada went up 1-0. It was cruise control from there on in for the reigning Olympic champs. Sweden could get nothing going and really, who could get ‘up’ for beating Sweden? There’s no hatred, history or anything for two countries with a strong history of socialism and politeness and lagging Internet piracy laws.

The games were less than thrilling, the stories all but played out over and over and over again before the Olympics arrived and now that they are over the narratives pre-Sochi are back front and centre.

Phil Kessel is not elite
Carey Price is not a good enough goalie in Montreal
Why did Ondrej Pavelec start back-to-back games
Russia has no depth in its system and do they care about defense
USA has to improve its program
Europeans care more about Olympics than Stanley Cups

For those teams that won, Canadians, Swedes and Finns it’s a great thing and the pride and joy for their victories is energy well spent but the excitement was not there. It was no different but when I saw the celebrations from across the country on Sunday after Canada had won; that was exciting? It wasn’t the hour it wasn’t the sobriety it was because it wasn’t exciting.
That game was not a collision course of two great teams playing great hockey. It was one team heavily out-skilled by another. It was a game where the victor played a near perfect game to win and that is commendable as is the result but it was also predictable.

Those who look closer at games than the final score could see and predicted the result, and most did. What Canada did this tournament was redefine the way to play hockey on the international ice surface. As I tweeted yesterday not only does Canada have great hockey players, it has the best hockey minds.

Consider that thought and then look back at what you saw from the tournament when Canada played. They took away almost every variable from the opposition other than luck- the won thing no one can control. What Babcock and his group did was establish a new benchmark for how to play international hockey.

Why? How?

Because the only two times that Canada has not medaled in the Olympics during NHL participating the game was played on international ice. They had the best players at the time but not the best system or understanding of the international game. 15 feet can make a huge difference and in two Olympics it did for the always favourited Canadians but not this year.

Hockey is a game of chances and luck. It’s a process of gaining possession of the puck moving it to the best possible place on the ice to score and capitalizing on that chance. If some one can figure out the best way to prevent that from happening to you and you leave one element no once can control, luck.
Perhaps the Canadians were lucky that no one found any ‘luck’ against them or perhaps they were just that good a team; from the skates to the management brain trust. What is fair to say is when a team takes almost every variable out of the game; luck (good or bad) is about the only thing that makes it entertaining.

From the list of the great games above:
In women’s gold medal it was a lucky goal post
In men’s quarter-final it was a lucky goals
In men’s round robin it was the luck with another goal post
In men’s semi-final there was no luck at all.

You have be good to be lucky but when you are what this Canadian team was it’s hard to get any luck when you play a group that good.

Join the Discussion: » 10 Comments » Post New Comment

» Who are the Jets and time for me to let go...

» Jets bet Oilers in scoreless but exciting game.

» Digestion Problems: Jets edition

» Laine shines in 5-2 win over Wild

» Hellebuyck, Laine and Defense shine in 4-1 win over Penguins