Freddie P's Blog

December 28, 2009 @ 10:14

I found Saturday's World Junior hockey game a tad on the embarrassing side. There is no glory in Team Canada pounding an opponent 16-0.

I don't blame our players or coaches for this. If you're going to play a game, you have to play a game, and if the opportunity to score a goal in a tournament that uses goal differential presents itself, you've got to put the biscuit in the basket.

I blame the organizers. I can't help but feel the World Junior Hockey Championship is like the cart before the horse.

They want to hold a tournament but there's no use holding it with less than eight teams, so they go out and recruit teams not because they're competitive or worthy, but simply because it allows them to complete the field and create more games to which they can charge admission.

Latvia does not belong in the tournament, and including them does nothing but make Team Canada look ruthless and expose the depth of hockey world wide.

This tournament is designed for two countries now, Canada and the United States. They've pretty well given up on holding it in Europe because nobody comes, so now Canada hosts it more than it should, and next years tournament will be played in Buffalo which really means Southern Ontario.

The best way to sell tickets is to have Canada play the United States in the final and I think even the Czechs and Russians have caught on because they don't seem to put the same effort into preparing teams as they used to.

It's hard to detect through all our patriotism and pride, but the tournament is slowly becoming a farce.

Which brings me to another point - are you ready for it - Women's hockey should be eliminated from the Olympics. It serves no purpose what so ever.

Don't get me wrong, when Canada inevitably plays the United States in the gold medal game I get as revved up as the next guy, but holding this tournament for two teams is absolutely pointless.

They invite Sweden and Russia and Finland and China to make it look like there's a reason for it all, but there isn't. It's a colossal waste of time that in the end makes the only two competitive combatants look rather silly.

This sport needs several more years of development to make it Olympic worthy.

Needless to say, in many corners I will considered a big turd for saying this, and I'm sure the feminist fringe would yell and scream at such a move, but come on, there's got to be a better use of effort, ice time and talent than a two team hockey tournament.

Of course ending it would never happen. Look at what happened with the world's three or four female ski jumpers a few weeks ago.

They went straight to the Supreme Court of Canada to force their way into the Vancouver Olympics, not because it made sense, but because they're women and they wanted to be there.

Forget that there aren't enough qualified women to make it a competition, or that this sport generally is still in its infancy or that there are IOC standards clearly in place, the women ski jumpers used human rights as their spring board and created quite a stir.

In the end they were logically denied, but it was enough of a shit storm that the very suggestion of eliminating women's hockey would make organizers run for the Rockies.