GOLD MEDAL HOCKEY! Why U.S.A vs. Canada Will Change The Game

by Rachel Sklar | 2:51 pm, February 28th, 2010

» 8 comments

This afternoon, the two final teams left standing in Olympic hockey are having a rematch.

And this time, it matters.

It matters for Canada, host to these Olympic games in glittering, semi-wintery Vancouver, in the sport it invented, honed, and worships on a national basis virtually around the calendar — the sport that, as much as anything else, is the source of Canada’s national pride.

It matters for the U.S.A., considered underdogs in this sport despite having a team filled with pro athletes with million-dollar salaries, despite winning the last match-up between the two teams, despite the killer medal count of the country atop the standings. The last time these two teams met up at the Winter Oympics, it was on U.S. home turf in Salt Lake City in 2002 — and Canada won.

So like I said, this time it matters — to both teams, and both countries, the way any big Olympic showdown matters, except more because this is hockey, and for a sport that doesn’t get much love Stateside when it comes to the Olympics this is the Big Kahuna.

This game is going to have insane ratings. Non-hockey fans were taken aback not only by how awesomely exciting the game was, by the huge ratings on MSNBC for the first Canada-USA matchup. 8.2 million people tuned in last weekend to the runner-up network. Today, the game is on NBC, live across all time zones. It starts at 3:15 pm EST (12:15 pm local Vancouver West Coast time), and you can bet that millions more will be tuning in.

Why will this change the game? Well, it comes back to that whole bit about mattering. Today, hockey is getting respect. Actually, these whole Olympic games have been about respect: Respect for the artistry and athleticism that goes into figure skating and ice dancing, respect for sports like curling that have typically been the butt of jokes, respect for snowboarding and the long-haired dudes and dudettes who kill it easily and then crack a brewsky to celebrate, respect for Canada which, while still providing easy punchlines thanks to “eh” and “sorry” and our affinity for beavers, has converted even the skeptics with these games and provided some fairly thrilling moments (even if they are sometimes hard to actually see).

But back to hockey. This game is going to be super exciting — off the charts in Canada, where they’re expecting something like 85% of the population to tune in — but a major event here, too. In a country where hockey is the also-ran sport (Football! Baseball! Basketball!) NHL games have suffered from spotty ratings and even spottier attendance. Now, the stars of the game are all on one team and they’ll be presented to their country live and in all their glory, showcasing the sport for millions of instant fans on a sweeping, glistening, icy Olympic stage, taking to the ice furiously and fabulously in a sport that is breathtakingly fast, heart-pumpingly physical but also pretty beautiful to watch. As far as PR goes, you can’t do much better.

And oh, the drama! If the stakes are high for one side, then they’re high for the other — and man are they high this time. “In Canada, it’s hockey,” Wanye Gretzky told NBC’s Kevin Tibbles earlier this week. “So if we don’t win Gold, they talk about it continuously for four years until the next team is selected to go to the next Olympic games.” Put more bluntly, said legendary Canadian commentator Don Cherry: “If we don’t win that gold, it’s gonna be national mourning.”

Well, just because it’s Canada’s national sport doesn’t mean it’s their medal to take by right. It isn’t — and they know it, after narrowly pulling it out against Switzerland, after losing to the U.S. once already, after having it so narrowly almost snatched out from under them by the Slovakians the other night in a game with a breathless finish that scared the wits out of any Canuckian fan watching. They know it, just as they know that the “Own The Podium” program felt wrong (ugh, so wrong), smacking of hubris that is just not very Canadian, the same hubris that always seems to catch Team Canada whenever they show some swagger. Swagger is difference than confidence and preparation and love of the game, and it comes back to respect – respecting the game, that it would inspire your opponents to skate as hard as they can to take it away from you. Today, Team Canada knows that — and man do they respect their challengers. That’s respect that has been earned. This game is anyone’s to win.

I repeat: This game is anyone’s to win. I’ll be watching at a pub filled with screaming Canadians in red and white, waving flags and cheering on the home team — but there will be pubs like that across the U.S.A. filled with American fans, cheering on a sport that in many cases they didn’t know they cared about…until right now. And in living rooms across both countries and indeed the world, the game will unfold as it will, as two Gold-Medal worthy teams take to the ice in a game that, either way, will emerge with the most important prize of all: Respect.

Let the puck fall where it may.

renton66

agree that this game matters for all things olympics, but i don’t think it will carry over to either the US networks nor the casual fan for the remainder of the NHL season.

and please don’t make the US squad out to be the NYYankees with “a team filled with pro athletes with million-dollar salaries”. there’s at least one or two NHL pros on the canadian team, right? maybe a couple more?

but congrats to canada for the gold crown. truly impressive.
PaavoNurmi

Matt:
To answer your question, EVERY player on Team Canada is an NHL player – same as Team USA. So the U.S. team is no more populated with “pro athletes with million-dollar salaries” than is Canada’s squad.

As a Canadian, Rachel should know this (or research it before she puts it in an article). Maybe she’s been living in the U.S. too long. ;-)

In fact, only two members of Team Canada play their pro hockey for Canadian NHL teams. The rest play for teams in… the U.S. (which has more many teams).

I’ll comment later on the prediction that this game will change things for hockey.
kit9

‘but there will be pubs like that across the U.S.A. filled with American fans’

Sorry, Rachel, but that’s just delusional. There is no way in hell Americans will be filling bars with crazed fans for this game. Ain’t gonna happen. Truth is, this game means very little to Americans. If we win, we’ll cheer for 2 seconds, if we don’t, we really won’t care since, well, it’s hockey-which only a handful of Americans give a rat’s about to begin with. If Canada wins, if Canada trounces us, they won’t really win unless they know Americans actually suffer from the loss, that we really feel bad for having lost. And, that ain’t gonna happen-not over hockey. Not now, not ever.

We’ll shrug- pat Canada on it’s head and tell them they did a good job winning what they should have won, being their national obsession and all. And then we’ll briefly marvel that we won a freaking silver medal in a sport none of us cares about. Then we’ll go to dinner.

The one and only time the US has ever cared about hockey is the Russian/US game in 80. And, of course, that had nothing to do with hockey. It just happened to be a hockey game. So, Rachel and all Canadians, get drunk and cheer for the home team and a win that means so much to you. It’s almost cute how much you have tied up in beating the US. Unfortunately, the US can’t reciprocate. Now, if an all Canadian team could beat the US in football, then you’d have something. But, that, like America caring about hockey, won’t happen. Ever.
Rachel Sklar

Dudes. OBVIOUSLY Canada is stocked with NHL players. I was pointing out that it’s crazy to have a team stocked with pros and be considered an underdog. There was not a whit of slighting the US team in this piece, nor trying to spin them as more of a threat to Canada. There was just acknowledgment that this was going to be one helluva a game, and a great thing either way for hockey. On balance, I’m feeling rather smug right now.

Sorry @Kit9 cares so little for the incredible performance of his country’s Olympic team – they were unreal, especially Miller and Parise. But plenty of people care about the team, and the sport, and they’ll go to dinner proud of how they did.
Cactus

Don’t know where kit9 lives… hockey is pretty much a regional interest in this land. I struggled to find someone during my years in California who really gave a damn (found a few Kings and Ducks fans, even then they all had some minor or major connection with Canada).

My stomping grounds are now Vermont and Long Island, NY… and I couldn’t get anyone to shut up about the hockey tournament and the US win in the preliminary round.

And I’ll echo Rachel’s comment regarding these two teams being evenly matched, obvious now that the game is over… but even before the tournament, I kept hearing this “huge underdog” and “second Miracle on Ice” crap… uhm, it’s an all-star team of NHLers going against another all-star team, not a bunch of scrappy kids from Minnesota facing a finely-tuned professional team. Underdog, “miracle on ice” my foot. In a way, I’m happy Canada won just so that I don’t have to hear about the “miraculous” win of our highly skilled and perfectly capable national hockey squad…
PaavoNurmi

Yes, the U.S. players are all professionals, but the main reason they were considered underdogs in the Olympic tournament is because they had the youngest team in the tournament– avg. age a little over 25.

The Canadians put a lot of effort into performing well at these Olympics, as all host countries do. (Supposedly the Canadian government gave its Olympic teams US $100 million as part of the Own the Podium program.) I’m sure hockey–Canada’s national sport–was a good part of that. Nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s another part of the reason Canada was seen as the favorite in hockey.

“OBVIOUSLY Canada is stocked with NHL players.”
I only mentioned this in answer to Matt’s question. (Maybe he was being facetious; it’s hard to tell online). Most Olympic teams have at least some NHL players.

As far as this game changing things, I don’t see it. The U.S. playing a gold-medal game on home soil in 2002 didn’t really boost hockey’s popularity as a spectator sport, from what I can tell. And the U.S. hosting the soccer World Cup years ago didn’t produce huge interest in soccer as a spectator sport.

Sure there has been a lot of enthusiasm lately for the U.S. hockey team & great ratings, but there has also been a lot of interest in U.S. accomplishments in speed skating, skiing, etc. A lot of it has to do with rooting for the national team though, & will fade out until the next Olympics.

Also, a key to growing a sport’s popularity and visibility is still TV exposure. The NHL has for the last few years been on Versus, which doesn’t have nearly the reach of ESPN, its former home.

In any case, it was a great hockey game and I congratulate the Canadians. I’m a fan of many things Canadian (especially music, which I often blog about), and If the U.S. couldn’t win the hockey gold Canada was the team I most wanted to see get it.

And thanks to Vancouver & B.C. for hosting the world for a great two weeks. I look forward to seeing the closing ceremonies (especially since Neil Young & K’Naan are supposed to be there!)
http://www.facebook.com/people/Matt-Gentile/579523271 Matt Gentile

sorry – i should have been clearer with my sarcasm – because the canadian squad was WAY more stacked than the US team, so i totally disagree that it was an even matchup as stated above.

but it was such a good game…save the gamewinner by crosby. i could have handled ANYONE but him.

and it did monstrously well in terms of ratings (as expected): http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/People-watch-hockey-Gold-medal-ratings-huge-for?urn=nhl,224998

see you in russia.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

While it rarely translates into a direct uptick in attendance or ratings for the NHL what you are likely to see is an increased interest on the local levels. The League did not directly benefit much from the Miracle-On-Ice in 1980 but it did lead to the formation of the USA Hockey orginization which established new parameters for youth hockey all the way up to collegiate play and Olympic team formation. As a result our naitive talent has seen a rise in skill levels over the years that is getting closer to expectations of the second most popular country for the sport.