Canada’s failure to get a medal at the recent World Hockey Championship in Slovakia has been met with great concern.
Hockey Canada President and C.E.O. Bob Nicholson deemed the showing, a second consecutive year with no medal for the Canadian entry, as ” unacceptable “.
I understand Nicholson’s viewpoint from the inside, but from the outside, I think it’s far from tragic.
The World Championship is slotted annually in the middle of the NHL Playoffs which means two things;
One, most of the best Canadian players are with their NHL club competing for the Stanley Cup.
And two, those Canadians eliminated from the Stanley Cup are often burned out from the season and not motivated to gear up for the high level of hockey required at the World Championship.
And that too is a factor. Canada isn’t getting medals at the Worlds, because other countries have terrific teams.
I wonder too if Bob Nicholson’s agitation at the results isn’t driven from above.
Hockey Canada is a business, a multi million dollar government operated business, and if funds are directed to the program by government officials, you’ve got to believe somewhere on Parliament Hill there’s a know-it-all politician who believes the results don’t justify the expense and quite possibly is pressuring those who run the various programs to produce Championship medals.
I’m Fred Wallace