Hockey fans love the five-ring circus
Absence of NHLers won’t stop us from watching Olympic tournament
TTORONTO odd Hlushko was sitting on the bench in Lillehammer that memorable day 23 years ago, wondering how he and his teammates had gotten here, euphoric beyond belief that they had.
It was hours before the 1994 Olympic gold medal game between Hlushko’s long shot Canadians and Peter Forsberg’s Swedes, and the then young Canadian forward was looking around the empty rink in Norway, trying to soak in the moment. This young rag-tag collection of players representing Team Canada were collectively dreaming the impossible dream, having been picked before the tourney to finish down in seventh or eighth by the majority of so-called experts.
Suddenly, Hlushko noticed that sitting beside him — as if he appeared out of nowhere — was Mike Eruzione, the hero of the greatest underdog team that sports has ever seen — the 1980 USA Miracle On Ice squad. Eruzione was at the ’94 Games doing television work and gave Hlushko some advice he remembers to this day.
“He just told me to have fun and enjoy the experience,” Hlushko recalled Tuesday. “He said it would be something we would all recall for a long time.”
In the end, the no-one-gave-us-achance Canadians did exactly that, separated only from gold by a Forsberg shootout goal.
Sure, history will show that this fairy tale didn’t end as pleasantly for Team Canada as the Americans’ did 14 years earlier in Lake Placid. Nevertheless, the Canadians and Swedes produced the type of thrilling theatre that had fans chewing their fingernails down to the nub on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Canadians actually carried a 2-1 lead late into the game, only to have the Swedes knot the score late in regulation time. When overtime settled nothing, it was left for Forsberg to do just that in the shootout, leaving Canada with silver after a 3-2 loss.
“It just shows you that anything can happen at the Olympics,” Hlushko said Tuesday. “That’s what makes the Olympics so great. And that’s why this Canadian team will be so fun to watch.”
For the first time since Hlushko and his Canadian teammates came so excruciatingly close to shocking the hockey world, the Olympics will see the lack of participation of NHLers.
The league’s controversial decision to stay home from the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea has left both players and fans confused and disgruntled, with social media bombarded with vows from those who love the sport that they won’t pay attention to the so-called watered down Olympic tournament come February.
We have a hard time believing that, especially when it comes to sports fans in this country.
Let’s be honest here. Canadians are infatuated with the Olympics. Television ratings blow up in this country every time the Games are held, whether or not we have a competitive team of athletes playing under the banner signifying the five rings.
How many of you, for example, paid attention to the sport of trampoline before it became an Olympic sport — and, more importantly, before our athletes became good at it?
When trampoline first became an event at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Canada’s Karen Cockburn won bronze, followed by silver in Athens and Beijing.
Inspired by the lead of Cockburn, who retired earlier this month, Canada has captured seven of the 30 Olympic trampoline medals handed out to date — including back-toback golds by Rosie MacLennan in 2012 and 2016.
There are dozens of Karen Cockburn-like stories that have taken place over the years when it comes to Canada at the Olympics. And when they’re unfolding in front of your eyes, you watch. You’re intrigued, even if it’s a sport you are not familiar with.
Why? The collective feeling among Canadians seems to be: because it’s one of ours.
“There is something special every time you wear that maple leaf on your chest, no matter what sport it is,” said Sean Burke, the GM of Canada’s men’s Olympic hockey team who represented this country numerous times back in the days when NHLers didn’t. “It’s special for the people wearing it and for the people at home watching it.”
Of course, there will be doubters out there who scoff that this will merely be a display of exhibition hockey without the best players on the planet. Maybe so. But it still means something.
After all, Martin Brodeur, a twotime Olympic gold medallist, threetime Stanley Cup winner and the winningest goalie in NHL history, found it important enough to eagerly join the Team Canada management team, all the while knowing the Sidney Crosbys and Carey Prices of the world won’t be there.
“Once the Games start, it will be exciting,” Hlushko said. “And we showed back in 1994 that, even without NHLers, anything can happen.”