WHAT, US WORRY?
After all the fretting over scoring, Canada shows its hockey smarts
Sometimes, we forget what Canada really is when it comes to hockey. We worry, we agonize, we fret. We wonder if the Americans will catch us, if the Swedes or the Finns will topple us, what the Russians have left. And sometimes we lose. It happens. It’s hockey.
But this country is a factory from coast to coast, an incubator and a gladiator academy, pumping out players who not only are big and fast and strong and skilled, so skilled, but actors who learn how to play the harder parts, too. We produce stars who can play like they have no skill. And in Canada’s 1-0 victory over the United States in the Olympic men’s hockey semifinal, it wasn’t Canada’s glittering skill that won the game. It was the other stuff.
“There’s a lot of winners in that locker-room,” said goaltender Carey Price, who made all 31 saves, “and they all know how to play in tough situations, and be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
That’s what it was. The game was played so fast that you couldn’t look away; few commercials, no quarter given, just trains whooshing past. Halfway through the first period the two teams were on pace for about 55 shots; they filled the big ice with the North American style, unafraid to skate and attack. It was glorious to watch.
And Canada took the high-flying American team that had strafed the tournament, possessed the puck, and sealed off the cracks. The U.S. got chances — Max Pacioretty at the side of the net, John Carlson in the slot, T.J. Oshie in close — but not enough. When Team Canada’s executive scouted players, they wanted to see them live, so they could see them away from the puck. This tournament has given us the why.
“Yeah, we expected (a tight game), but we didn’t have any pressure or anything,” said American defenceman Ryan Suter. “It’s tough to win when you don’t play in the offensive zone.”
“They came at us with 20 guys tonight,” said United States coach Dan Bylsma. “They came at us with speed, they came at us for 60 minutes, and that was a fast game. That was as fast a game as I’ve ever been a part of. There was lots of speed out there, it was up and down the ice, and we weren’t able to counter that as much as we’d like.”
Part of it was strategy — Canadian centre Matt Duchene said the ice gets bad at Bolshoy Ice
‘They came at us with 20 guys tonight. They came at us with speed, they came at us for 60 minutes, and that was a fast game.That was as fast a game as I’ve ever been a part of.’
DAN BYLSMA U.S. head coach on Team Canada
Dome after about 10 minutes, and fancy plays get harder, and remember, the Americans rang up many of their scoring sprees on the reportedly better ice of Shayba Arena — and part of it was Canada.
The factory produced a team so rich in talent that it lost centre John Tavares, scratched Norris winner P.K. Subban, didn’t play Art Ross winner Marty St. Louis and minimized horse Rick Nash, and didn’t miss a beat.
“It’s pretty tough to think about what the matchups are, when the fourth line is Rick Nash,” said Bylsma. “There’s talent right from the top to the bottom, on every line. Early in the game we had last change first, and I put (David) Backes out first, and Mike (Babcock) put out (Sidney) Crosby. And that’s something everyone said I had to do in this game. And Mike gave it to me.”
“It’s hard to get real good players to be as committed as our group is defensively,” said Babcock. “You know, we haven’t scored, and no one seems to care. It doesn’t matter. They just want to have an opportunity.”
Canada has allowed three goals in the tournament — two deflections and a stray breakaway — and has forwards that backcheck, a penalty kill that at one point featured Jonathan Toews and Patrice Bergeron both, and just so much. Babcock talked about a pre-Olympics fundraiser “with a bunch of plumbers,” and for a second you thought he was talking about his forwards.
And still, it was a one-goal game. It came on one of Canada’s extended stays in the offensive zone; Jamie Benn got the puck to Jay Bouwmeester at the point, and Bouwmeester saw Benn starting to break into the slot and delivered a perfect slap pass that Benn tipped past Jonathan Quick, who made 36 other saves, at 1:41 of the second. In this tournament, there were seven total lead changes. This game didn’t feature an eighth.
“What’s interesting is Bouwmeester made a real good play, and of all the people on the back end, and I’m not trying to give Bo a shot, he’s a great skater, good defender — you don’t expect him to be doing the stuff on the blue line,” said Babcock. “But that’s how talented the teams are.”
How talented his team is, anyway. On the other side, the Americans looked devastated. Captain Zach Parise could barely get a sentence out. This was hard for them.
And for Canada, the win capped a four-medal day for this nation, with gold in men’s curling, gold and silver in women’s ski cross and bronze in men’s short-track, equalling its previous best performance at a Winter Olympic Games. Canada now has 24 medals — nine gold, 10 silver and five bronze — with one in men’s hockey now guaranteed.
“We’ve got one more game to prove that we’re still on top,” said Toews. “We’re going to work, put everything on the line, to prove that we’re the best. Regardless of whether it’s a round-robin game, or a bronze-medal game, or a goldmedal game, or just a semifinal game, beating (the American) team means a lot to us, and we really wanted it tonight.”
Perhaps we, as a nation, should be reassured. We don’t always win. We lose the world juniors now; we could still lose the Olympics. But nobody produces players the way we do that are willing to be this sort of team.
It’s been written before, and it’s true: Canada is the red army now, rolling over Russia in wave after wave. One more to go.