Sports in General

"Oh, Whoa...Canada"

by Tommy Scherrer

Q: Thomas, can we, as Americans relate to what was going on with the Canadian hockey team having to win a gold medal?

A: Take a trip back to June 22, 1938. It is Joe Louis-Max Schmeling II, with the heavyweight championship of boxing on the line. But more than just a bout between the "Brown Bomber" and "Black Uhlan of the Rhine", it was America against Germany...Nazi Germany, no less. The venue is Yankee Stadium, the crowd is over 70,000 fans, the political tensions riding very, very, very high, and just in case you didn't know, boxing mattered about a million times more than it does in 2010. Imagine Louis leading after 10 rounds, he's got Schmeling on points, he has scored one early knockdown but Schmeling (a former world champion) recovers to take the bout to the 11th round, needing just one punch to even the bout. Suddenly, Schmeling catches Louis dropping his left after a jab with a vicious shot similar to their first bout in 1936, which shelved Louis for his first professional loss. Same scenario, Louis is knocked down but he responds to the count to continue fighting. All of a sudden, Schmeling is back in the fight and all he needs is one more shot like that to pull of a national tragedy. Imagine in the 13th round, Schmeling does so: blisters Louis with a flurry to where referee Arthur Donovan steps in and stops the fight. Schmeling wins the world title, Louis caves under all the pressure, America mourns its inferiority to the Aryan Race of Nazi German and Hitler and the sport for which they have held as their own sees the face of their country fall to the forces of evil.

If Zack Parisi's goal with 24 seconds left in regulation to tie Sunday's Gold Medal hockey game was the 11th round right cross, then the 13th round flurry would have been an overtime goal from the likes of a Patrick Kane, a Phil Kessel, or God forbid Canada, a Chris Drury, who would have gone back to New York City, captain of the New York Rangers, a conquering hero in this country...again. There would be Drury banging home a low stuff-in attempt in front of goaltender Roberto Luongo, silence in the building, a nation in both symbolic and literal tears.

However, reality was that Louis destroyed Schmeling in two minutes and 4 seconds. Reality was, Sidney Crosby awoke from his coma and scored seven minutes and forty seconds into overtime to give Canada a 3-2 win over the United States to give a nation of 33 million souls a celebration worth the moment. Here is Crosby, 22, already a Stanley Cup champion, the heir to hockey's throne, as well as Canada's throne, firing one past Ryan Miller to set the city of Vancouver on fire and the country of Canada into joy, excitement, and in some cases, relief.

That scenario is probably as close as Americans can relate to what Canadians were feeling for roughly two weeks enduring the 2010 Winter Olympic hockey tournament. Truth is, we will never know what those players, coaches, management, and administration of Canada were going through trying to answer their early round struggles, the benching of the iconic Martin Brodeur, the sleepwalking job Joe Thornton and Crosby were doing...you name it, Americans could not relate on any level whatsoever. Most importantly, the fans and citizens of Canada were probably more on edge than the players were. You see, fans invest in everything. They buy tickets to see athletes perform feats that they only dreamed about in dirt fields, driveways with basketball hoops boarded up on the garage, and homemade ice rinks made out of cold winter nights and the sprinkler machine running. They cheer their heroes on, almost blindly, hoping that they can give us one moment that we can tell our unborn kids, our grandkids, our nephews or nieces, or even someone who is unable to see. Sunday night, Sidney Crosby gave everyone in one nation a moment to remember. He also gave one nation a big sigh of relief since this is their game.

Americans can counter and say that they created baseball, basketball, and football...stockcar racing, modern tenpin bowling, and extreme sports. That, however is just the problem: our athletic attention is splintered into so many factions that no single sport can define our nation. We like to think a sport such as football does the way hockey grips Canada, but that is doing Canadians a major disservice to their past as well as to the present. Only one team in this tournament could actually fail with anything other than a gold medal and that was Canada.

Russia...? Maybe upset but they would not have lost sleep over not winning gold.

Sweden...? The reigning gold medalists would have liked to have defended it, but probably knew they were a younger Peter Foresburg away and an even hotter Henrik Lundqvist away from repeating.

USA...? Please. Most "experts" did not think that this "team" would be good enough to get a medal game.

Canada have everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain. Win the gold medal and they'll say it was your mission accomplished. Lose to the US on Sunday and be labeled as underachievers, chokers, losers, men who lacked national pride, or any other negative label. Sidney Crosby changed that notion for at least 4 years.

Arguably, the most important hockey game played since June 14, 1994 and easily, the most important Olympic hockey game since Lake Placid, 1980 had two nations sitting on the edge of their collective seats. However, only one nation had everything riding on it. The other had scouting combines, spring training, NASCAR, a US Open, and TigerWatch on their minds.

Canada...your game, your time, your moment.