Charlie Klein
What do people normally say when one tells them "I am a hockey fan." They usually say "How can you see the puck." All of a sudden whenever hockey gets brought up the whole of America is joined together in a universal vision deficiency. Somehow, I think everyone saw the puck last night.
Team Canada defeated Team USA 3-2 last night in overtime at Canada Hockey Place on a game winning goal from Sidney Crosby. Zach Parise of Team USA tied the game at two by following up on Patrick Kane's shot and putting the rebound beyond the reach of Roberto Luongo with 24.4 seconds remaining in regulation time. At that point, if you still believed in miracles, you thought the USA was going to be going home with the gold.
This was not meant to be. Crosby's first shot was dumped into the corner by Miller where Crosby and Jarome Iginla battled to win control of it for Team Canada. Crosby, like all smart forwards do, went to the net and received Iginla's perfect pass and put it through the legs of Miller to bring the 35 million people of Canada to their feet.
Honestly though, who is surprised that of all people to score the winning goal, it was Sidney Crosby that ended the American's push for gold? While having gone the past three games without scoring, Crosby has become el hombre when it comes to Canadian hockey at the tender age of 22. And it was a fairly innocuous shot that Miller ought to have stopped.
What have these Olympic Games proven about the sport of hockey? The jury really is still out on this one. Yes, even Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models were tweeting about the game, and yes, even friends of mine who usually wouldn't be caught dead watching a hockey game were fist-pumping just as hard as I was when Parise tied it. But the league is still on Versus, a channel which is not provided by every cable/dish company and it still remains the sport Americans care the least about. There are some positives which if the NHL was run by a halfway decent commissioner one could honestly come to expect to be carried over into league play.
First, the NHL should do away with commercial breaks between face-offs during games. All of the Team USA games were televised in this fashion and it allowed for a better flow to the game and kept the fans into the game. Air the commercials between periods when post people are not watching the game anyway. No one really cares what new unintelligent thing Mike Milbury has to say.
Second, increase the rink size to match the international rink. The larger rink made a clear impact on the style of play and allowed for more up and down play that is not as much of a constant fixture in NHL games. More ice allows the skilled players to showcase what they have to offer. Marketable players like Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, and Rick Nash become even more accessible through this change.
Third, Gary Bettman has to allow NHL players to play at the Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia in 2014. Every player has said that they want to play in the next tournament, and after how successful the last one was in Vancouver, how could Bettman say no? Crosby will want to defend his gold and Alexander Ovechkin will want to represent his country in their Olympics. I understand that he may be reluctant because the games will not be televised live at normal hours like they were in 2010. And I also get that when the games were not in North America those teams did not do as well and ratings went down. But I would also argue that Bettman ought to come out soon and commit his league to Sochi in 2014 to seize upon the momentum generated for his sport in the past two weeks.
At the end of this tournament, I don't even really feel like criticizing Team USA too heavily for what it should have done better. In every game every single player gave it their best effort and did our country proud. Yes, we lost to the hated Canadians, but in a tournament in which we were given little chance to succeed, we defeated the world's best all the way to the final. Heavyweights like Canada and Finland fell prey to our brilliant goaltending and our typical American-style refusal to accept what it is we could or could not do.
As Herb Brooks once said, "I want our players to go out there and have the times of their lives, ... We're not going to be hanging around waiting for something to happen. We're going to make things happen ourselves.” Team USA was the embodiment of that philosophy, and I personally want to thank them for enlivening an otherwise lackluster 2010 Olympic Games. U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A.
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