Well now that the weeping and ugly hangover from the Canada/USA game has finally subsided, I guess it’s on to something new; the next game(s). You know, I actually heard bone-headed, shameful, so-called Canadians saying “Oh that’s it, Canada is done” or “Now how are they going to come back from this”. What are you insane? IT’S ONE GAME! Not to mention, that ONE GAME that resulted in ONE LOSS resulted in Canada being put in the god awful, hopeless, no-way-out position of… get ready for it… ONE EXTRA GAME! But one extra game you say? No way, there’s no way that Canada could ever survive this tournament with an extra game to play. How could they ever handle it? Their gas tanks will be on empty! How could they ever take on the Russians with a game against Germany on the previous night? It can’t be done. They’re finished. The one loss has completely killed them and with an extra game to play in order to qualify for the quarters, there’s surely no way in hell this team can win. It’s impossible. Sixty extra minutes, the Russians next, who knows what after that… my god, it’s over. The tournament is finished. Turn off your TV sets.
Alright, that’s my dumb attempt to be funny with sarcasm, back to reality now.
NHL players work out pretty much every day. They have nutritionists, trainers, personal doctors that are better than our doctors. When was the last time you were off work for 4 weeks after surgery on your broken finger? Uhhh… never. Now I won’t get in to any tasteless drabble about athletes being paid too much because it’s played out and redundant. But in all seriousness, for a player like Sid the Kid, Iginla, Nash, or any other of Canada’s all-star lineup, 20-25 minutes a game should be a cake walk, and that’s just the forwards. Everyone on this stacked roster play enormous minutes 3-4 times a week in the NHL and they travel all the time. The guys right now have been in Vancouver for a little while and aren’t going anywhere (hopefully) in the next six days. To think that Canada’s game against Germany is somehow going to cripple them to any degree is utterly foolish. If the squad cannot manage to pull through and win the next 4 games and they are stopped, then they lost to a better team (or goalie) on that particular night. But the loss to the USA isn’t going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and that’s for sure. In a game completely dominated by Canada from start to finish, the States are the guys who should be worried. Sure, they scraped out a win, but how bad is Ryan Miller’s back hurting after carrying an entire team on it? Can he actually do that for three more games? Maybe, but definitely not likely.
I’m really not trying to be biased at all and I don’t think I am. I would be extremely worried about Canada if they had gone into that game and were completely outplayed for 60 minutes, but they weren’t and a couple gaffs cost them the win. But how could anyone watch that game and not see that Canada should win 8 or 9 out of 10 times against our neighbors. Canada wins that game 9/10 times. The States managed to snag that one other game on Sunday, but don’t expect it to be the same should they meet again. It was purely an upset win and luckily it only means an extra tune up game for Canada against an underdog German squad. Is that really so bad?
Obviously it is time for Canada to pull up their socks and put away some teams, but that will come. Playing confident in front of Luongo tonight and (possibly) for the remainder of this tourney should lead to good things. I truly believe that. For people who don’t believe and think that the loss on Sunday was the be-all end-all, you’re simply reading in to it way too much.
MSU
