Monday, February 25, 2002
It's the Canadian way
By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- There was nothing wrong with designating Joe Sakic the MVP of the Olympic tournament.
The organizers pretty well had to name somebody from the team that won the gold medal, and since Sakic was the only Canadian they saw fit to name to the all-star team, he was the logical choice.
But really -- and Sakic would be the first to tell you this -- there was no clear-cut MVP.
If there were ever a top-to-bottom team effort, a performance truly representative of what hockey in Canada is all about, this was it.
These players came from French Canada and English Canada. Some learned the game on the bumpy, frozen ponds of the prairies, others on the manicured ice of big-city arenas. Some can trace their Canadian heritage back through the centuries. Others are recent arrivals.
But when it mattered, when the gold medal was on the line, they all played hockey the time-honoured Canadian way.
They came out on top in the battles along the boards. They won the races for the puck. They threw their bodies in front of shots. They played as if losing were out of the question.
There is a certain resolve, a certain sense of purpose, that the great Canadian hockey players possess and they pass it on from generation to generation.
There are no books, no lectures, no videos. You learn it by watching other people put it into action.
Yesterday, it was passed on to people like Simon Gagne, Jarome Iginla, Eric Brewer, Ryan Smyth and Ed Jovanovski.
It was passed on by people like Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Al MacInnis and Joe Nieuwendyk.
"The attitude in our dressing room was unbelievable before the game," said Owen Nolan, who came to Canada from Northern Ireland as a child.
"We had so much confidence. We believed in one another."
NO SINGLE LEADER
There was no single leader in this game, no keynote speaker in the dressing room. One veteran after another made it clear that this was the kind of game that demanded maximum effort. It needed to be played the way Canadians play hockey when the chips are down.
No athlete can ever say that he is going to go out and win a game. But he can certainly say that he is going to go out and do the right thing. And once he lives up to that promise, the chances of victory rise exponentially.
Yesterday, Canada's hockey heritage took over. There was never any panic. There was never any uncertainty that the right path was being followed. And there was certainly no wavering from that path.
The Americans came into that game riding high -- unbeaten and the offensive powerhouse of the Olympics.
But they had played against a bunch of Europeans whose idea of forechecking is have one guy floating around the blue line waving at anyone who goes past.
REAL FORECHECKING
Yesterday, they encountered Canadian forechecking.
By virtue of the absence of pressure in the first five games, offensively oriented defencemen such as Tom Poti, Phil Housley, Gary Suter and Brian Leetch frolicked along, wheeling around at their leisure and setting up their forwards for pretty goals.
Yesterday, they encountered Canadian forechecking.
At the end of the first period, the Americans were down only 2-1, but the score didn't come close to representing the disparity in the game.
In every important area other than the score, the Canadians were well ahead. They went back into the dressing room feeling every bit as confident has they had when they left it.
It might not have appeared clear to the average fan, but they knew it was under control. Sure, there could be flukes, awful breaks or some other form of unpredictable development, but neither hockey players nor anyone else can do anything about that sort of thing.
You just have to assume that justice will prevail, that the better team will win. And the Canadians knew that as long as they kept on playing that Canadian game, the gold medal was almost certainly theirs.
When it was over, and the medals had been hung around Canadian necks, people such as MacInnis pressed home the message to make sure that the next generation understands what it all means.
"Oh God," he said with heartfelt emotion. "To hear the national anthem out there at age 38, I'll tell you. It feels good.
"You look at young guys like Gagne and Iginla. I told them to cherish this day because you never know. With these moments, you never know."
But as long as Canadians keep calling upon their heritage in this game, you do know.
There will be wins and there will be losses, but only one nation will be the benchmark by which the others measure their achievements.
Canada.
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2002 Games Columnists
