Even in defeat the loss by Team USA to Canada in the gold medal game of the Vancouver Olympics was pretty impressive. Forget the fact that Ryan Miller, the losing goalie, was the MVP of the tournament or that the team had about 72 hours to get together before it played its first real game. These things just belie the point.
Yeah, the United States is a big country and that means we should be good at a lot of things that require mettle and brawn. The pool from which draw from for athletics is very deep and it’s not outlandish to think that some of the best athletes in the country are playing the wrong sports. For instance, think if LeBron James, all 6-foot-8 and 270 pounds of him played soccer. How would LeBron look running around like a freight train on the pitch amongst veritable waifs like Ronaldo or Beckham? Those guys wouldn't stand a chance.
Or what if all that time in Italy as a kid pushed Kobe Bryant toward soccer instead of basketball? Soccer, of course, is just one example but there are thousands of different scenarios out there that could have changed the sporting landscape.
Most of the variables involved here have to do with economics and geography. Basketball doesn’t cost a lot of money to play. Better yet, it doesn’t even require another person. Try playing baseball or football by yourself. Trust me, it’s not much fun.
Hockey is the worst of the bunch. A kid can’t play it by himself, the equipment is ridiculously expensive and the necessary elements required to play are difficult to find in 80 percent of the country. In fact, I remember wanting to play hockey when I was a kid until I learned that in order to get ice time at the one rink in town, practices had to start at 5 a.m. I imagine ice time is even more difficult to find in the southeast and southwestern parts of the country.
The point is hockey is not our game. We’re not ingrained to think about becoming hockey players when we’re kids because not only is it not a part of our culture (except for in certain regions), it has set up roadblocks of participation. It's a regional/fringe/cult sport, but so what. Isn't it more fun to have something of your very own?
So hockey in the United States has a lot working against it, but the national team somehow always is vying to be the best in the world. Twice the US has won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics and twice in the last three tries, Team USA lost to Canada for the gold medal.
How can Canada ever lose in international hockey? If Canada were to lose in hockey to the US it would be much, much worse than if the US team did not get the gold in basketball. Considering the percentage of kids that grow up playing both sports in their respective countries, Canada should dominate every hockey competition the same way the United States should dominate every basketball competition.
And yet in Canada they were dancing in the streets after the team hung on to beat the Americans in overtime. They had all they could handle in a hockey tournament that as close to a US invasion the Great White North will see baring a mass encroachment at the border to get those reasonably priced prescription medications and Cuban cigars they have.
Indeed, give the Canadians credit for the hockey acumen, high standards of living, quality health care, cheap drugs and the ability to travel to Cuba. We’ll take hoops, nicer weather, all-you-can-eat buffets and the fact that we don’t spell words like “color” oh so annoyingly like, “colour.”
We know what the gold medal hockey game means to Canada (everything), but what does it mean here in the US. Sure, the OT loss was the third-most watched hockey game ever—behind the 1980 Olympics game against the USSR and the gold-medal game against Finland—but how will that translate to the NHL?
How about this… it won’t.
Hey, I could be wrong, but I don’t see anything in common between the Olympics version of hockey and the NHL. One has to do with national pride in the only understandable team sport in the oddity that is the Winter Olympics, and the other used to get national TV ratings worse than women’s softball and the WNBA. Oh sure, there is a large and vocal hockey contingent in Philadelphia. In numbers they might not be as great as the folks more interested in the traditional American sports, but they make a lot of noise and spend a lot of money.
However, just because the US lost a thrilling game to Canada doesn’t necessarily mean Flyers’ fans are going to tune in to watch Detroit vs. Colorado. After all, the Phillies open up their Grapefruit League schedule on Thursday against the Yankees and Denver plays Phoenix in NBA action tonight.
When’s the next Olympics?