U.S. ENRAGED? MORE LIKE PLACID
While Canada’s up in arms, poll suggests Americans don’t need NHLers at Olympics
It seems hockey fans in the land of red, white and blue aren’t feeling quite as blue as puck-crazed Canadians when it comes to the NHL’s decision not to participate in the 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea.
That’s according to respondents on both sides of the border in a Mainstreet-Postmedia poll conducted during the 48 hours after the NHL’s announcement Monday that it would skip the PyeongChang Games after taking part in the previous five.
Canadians, once again wearing their passionate hockey hearts on their sleeves, overwhelmingly gave a thumbs-down to the league’s choice to skip the competition next February, with 62 per cent saying they disagreed with the decision.
The response is understandable given Canadians have watched their homegrown NHLers win gold at the last two Olympic Games. The 2010 title game against the U.S. in Vancouver still ranks as the mostwatched television show in this country, drawing 16.6 million viewers on average. An estimated 26.5 million Canadians watched at least part of the game, won 3-2 by the hosts on Sidney Crosby’s golden goal, which ignited a party that stretched coast to coast, from St. John’s to Squamish.
Meanwhile, only 20 per cent of American respondents said they disagreed with the NHL’s decision — a difference of 42 percentage points.
Why so much waffling in the U.S. over this issue?
“Canadians are up in arms, but many Americans don’t seem to have an opinion on this,” said Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research. “That may be the reason the NHL felt it could make this move in the first place. The American market is much larger than the Canadian one.
“Americans are essentially split, with 18 per cent saying it was a good decision and 20 per cent saying it was a bad decision — the results are within the margin of error,” he said. “Canadian public opinion is completely different. Overall, 62 per cent of Canadians say this was the wrong decision. The number is lowest in Ontario (58 per cent) and highest in the Prairies (68 per cent). Only 12 per cent of Canadians said they weren’t sure or didn’t know.”
Whether the results reflect an indifference for the sport in the U.S. or a lack of understanding of the details is up for debate, but we know this: 62 per cent of the 1,022 Americans polled said they weren’t sure if the league was doing the right thing, compared with just 12 per cent of the 1,500 Canadians who were surveyed.
Canadians, based on those results, have much stronger opinions than Americans about the NHL’s refusal to go to South Korea.
Of course, when it comes to using non-NHL players at the Olympics, the Americans can boast that one of the greatest moments in the sporting history of their country came under those circumstances. Do you believe in miracles? Many south of the border certainly do, thanks to the U.S. Miracle on Ice squad of amateur players that won gold at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. It was one of the most memorable underdog performances of all time.