Hockey: Fighting ire with ire, Fasel tells Canada to practise shootout more

GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA— As Tony Granato watched the clock wind down in overtime, he found it hard to believe that an elimination game at the Olympics had to go to a shootout.

The Czech Republic knocked Granato’s United States team out in the quarter-finals in the same skills competition used in the NHL for regular-season but never playoff games. It took a shootout for the U.S. women’s team to beat archrival Canada for the gold medal and al- though Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson’s decisive deke in the sixth round and Maddie Rooney’s saves provided theatre, such a classic game going to a shootout felt wrong.

“It’s hard when it’s all said and done to say that it gets decided by a bunch of breakaways, but that’s the rules,” Granato said.

Two medal-round games at the Pyeongchang Olympics ended in shootouts. International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel said continuous sudden-death overtime is not possible in a tournament.

“You cannot let the team play the whole night,” Fasel said Saturday. “Yes, it’s a skills test, but it’s a game . . . I will never convince North Americans to accept that but it is like it is.”

Fasel added, “Maybe the Canadians can practise a little more the shootout,” and Granato was the first to admit that winning in a shootout doesn’t tarnish anything. U.S. women’s hockey coach Robb Stauber knows it can go both ways.

“(Wednesday) the men’s team lost in a shootout, and two of our coaches said, ‘God that’s a terrible way to lose,’ ” Stauber said. “And my first response was, ‘Unless you’re on the other end.’”

Being on the other end is no fun. Ask any of Canada’s players from 1994 and 1998 — or Canada’s women’s team that lost the Olympic final for the first time since ’98 after going back and forth for 80 minutes with the Americans.

“It sucks,” Canada goaltender Shannon Szabados said. “It becomes more individual and less of a team thing, so a little harder to swallow.”

IIHF overtime rules call for 10 min- utes of 4-on-4 in the qualification, quarterfinal and semifinal rounds and 20 minutes of 4-on-4 in the final before a five-round shootout. Fasel is that if it’s good enough for soccer, it’s good enough for hockey.

“We are growing up with football and we are used to it,” Fasel said. “Football is the biggest sport in the world. It is. And they finish the final of the World Cup with a shootout, et voila. So I will never convince North Americans to accept that, but it is like it is. I cannot change it. I’m really sorry about that.”