DESPERATELY SEEKING MORE DRAMA ON THE RINK
There are five days left in the Winter Olympics and one hockey tournament to salvage.
Can that happen? Is it possible for this men’s tournament to find the life it’s been lacking ?
The first week of Olympic hockey hasn’t been completely dreadful, but it certainly hasn’t been overly entertaining, either. The star of the first week: the fans of South Korea. The second star: Gary Bettman.
If the obstinance of the NHL commissioner was evident in not allowing his players to attend these Games as they have for every Olympics starting in 1998, what’s evident now is that the NHL presence is needed here and the leverage for negotiation stands with Bettman.
The Olympics now needs the NHL a whole lot more than the NHL needs the Olympics. And whenever negotiation happens, Bettman finds a way to win.
Here he wins by not showing up and exposing what’s left of the sport, which frankly doesn’t appear to be much when you eliminate the NHL, the AHL and junior hockey from the equation.
In this tournament to date, the quality of play has been lower than expected. The skill level has been just ordinary. The number of memorable plays — did you see this or did you see that? — you can count on a couple of fingers.
So we’re down to eight teams and now the good stuff is supposed to happen. That’s what usually goes on in one-game elimination tournaments. The more at stake, the more intense the games, the better the product.
We saw that in 1992 and 1994, and while those tournament didn’t have NHL participation, there were NHL-ready players there. Canada had players such as Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Sean Burke, Kevin Dineen and Joe Juneau. Nikolai Borschevsky had nine points for the Unified Team in 1992. Peter Forsberg was huge for Sweden in 1994, Saku Koivu was with Finland, Ziggy Palffy led the tournament in scoring in 1994 for Slovakia.
There isn’t much of that depth of player here. The Finns have got a great performance from young Eeli Tolvanen, who played a season ago for Sioux City of the USHL. Tolvanen has nine points already in four games. He’s the player Team Canada will have to focus most on to advance to the semifinals Friday.
Hopefully, the hockey Wednesday will take a step up from what we’ve seen to date. There isn’t a single young, promising player on the Canadian team. The two best Russians are Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk, who are players of immense talent but whose best days are behind them.
Sweden has Rasmus Dahlin, the almost certain first pick in the upcoming NHL draft, but the conservative nature of Team Sweden has limited his effectiveness.
Which means what for quarterfinals, semifinals and eventual gold-medal game on Sunday?
Of the four playoff games Wednesday, two appear to be foregone conclusions and two appear to be 50-50 propositions. Russia should have little difficulty with Norway. Sweden is heavily favoured to beat Germany, which establishes the top seed in each side of the hockey draw.
That leaves Canada playing Finland and the Czech Republic against the Americans — and maybe a little of the drama that has been missing will emerge.
Unfortunately, the way the draw was set up didn’t help this tournament format with lesser talent. The first three games weren’t meaningless, but didn’t eliminate anyone. By the end of Wednesday night here, all 12 teams will have played in an elimination game.
What the tournament needs, really, is some kind of emotional kick. A great Canada-Finland game, maybe. A back-and-forth U.S.-Czech Republic game. A last-minute goal. An overtime winner. Even — much as I hate them — a shootout ending.
The best hockey stories thus far in the Olympics have involved the Koreans: their fans who cheer anything from a missed shot to broken stick; their combination team of women from North and South Korea; their plucky team playing close games with the Czechs and again with Finland. Those are the memories so far.
We need something better. We need something tangible and dramatic. We need someone on this rather faceless Team Canada to make some noise.
What people forget from Sochi and four years ago was how clinical much of the hockey was. Team Canada was so superb that it meant for a lifeless, onesided gold-medal match against Sweden. The number of games to hold on to were few: But at least we were watching the best players in the world.
What people remember in almost any sporting event is the end. We don’t often remember beginnings. We don’t often talk about great first periods.
That’s why there is still hope here. There are seven games remaining that still matter. There are possibilities of something taking shape — something we haven’t seen yet. Something to grasp onto.