Canada forward Ethan Gauthier (20) sits on the bench alongside teammates Luca Pinelli (13) and Brayden Yager (11) during the third period of the world junior jockey championship quarter-final as they lose 4-3 to Czechia, in Ottawa, on Jan. 2.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
However things turn out at the world junior hockey championship, you can always count on Canada to capture the poetry of it.
“It sucks,” said Canadian forward Calum Ritchie after the country’s quarter-final loss on Thursday to Czechia.
TSN liked the ring of that so much it made it the headline of its main story on Friday morning: “‘It sucks’: Canada crashes out of world juniors for second straight year.”
Somewhere up there, Scott Young and Christie Blatchford are giving each other a look of despair.
This was one of those losses everyone saw coming. Canada had spent this tournament going up and down more violently then a paint shaker. Good win against Finland; terrible loss to Latvia; staggered past Germany; outstretched at the tape by the United States and, finally, outmanoeuvred by Czechia.
Canada failed to qualify for the medal round for the second year in a row. That had never happened before. So now it is time to ring the bells and warn the townsfolk. Do not leave your homes. Another plague of hockey existentialism is upon us.
Canadian players show their disappointment after losing 4-3 to Czechia at the end of the IIHF world junior hockey championship quarter-final in Ottawa on Jan. 2.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
After one of these things, everybody says how bad they feel for the players. They’re just kids. They may never get over this.
That’s a clue about there about how weird it is that Canada – alone among all the world’s countries – puts so much onus on a teenage-sports tournament. It’s like having a crisis of faith every time your son’s Boy Scout troop fails to make the podium at an orienteering jamboree.
It’s not the players I feel bad for. They have rich futures. My question is, who’s checking in on TSN this morning?
Once again, it planned a holiday blockbuster. Once again, the lead actor flaked halfway through production. Now it’s stuck making a Scandinavian art film no one wants to see.
At least it will get to spend one last weekend in Ottawa.
The problem with Canada losing at the world juniors isn’t Canada losing at the world juniors, or anybody feeling bad about Canada losing at the world juniors. It’s that our need to win has sucked all the fun out of a tournament that should be more fun than serious.
The world juniors is also a rarity in the sense that it is a global tournament (if you only count the northern half of the globe) patronized by, run by, timed for and aimed at just one country.
Thursday’s Canada-Czechia game went off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. That’s 1:30 a.m. in Prague. How many people over there do you think watched this glorious national triumph? It’s a Thursday night in Prague. At 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning, they were all getting ready to go out.
Obviously, the home team gets more consideration, but Canada is nearly always the home team.
Czechia forward Eduard Šalé (12) scores on Canada goalkeeper Carter George during the IIHF world junior hockey championship quarter-final in Ottawa on Jan. 2.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The past five tournaments have been held in Edmonton, Edmonton, Halifax (and Moncton), Sweden’s Gothenburg and now Ottawa. The next couple are in Minneapolis and, you guessed it, Edmonton (and Calgary).
When they’re planning the FIFA World Cup, they don’t sit around saying, “Hey, France did a great job last time. Should we just do France again?” No multinational sports event that it is held more than 50 per cent of the time in one spot without being permanently homed there can be considered ‘global’. It’s local.
You get why it’s ended up this way. You do a round-robin game in Sweden that doesn’t feature Sweden – maybe 6,000 or 7,000 people show up. That’s if you’re lucky and you’ve done an absolute ton of marketing.
You do the same thing in Vancouver, you put up some flyers within six blocks of the arena and you get twice that number. You put the game on right before Canada vs. U.S., and you might fill the house.
This effect is amplified in second cities that don’t usually hold big events. Your costs go down and your margins go up. The ideal world juniors is held in a Manitoba airport where exactly 20,000 Canadians have been stranded by a holiday snowstorm.
Down in the United States, the world juniors is broadcast by the NHL Network – the outlet that serves ESPN’s offcuts.
Go to the league’s home page and you’ll need a map and a compass to find its coverage. It’s buried under eight inches of NHL game stories. That’s how much this tournament matters to non-Canadians who make their living off hockey. Imagine how much it matters to those who don’t.
It’s more reason why the International Ice Hockey Federation cannot wean itself from Canada. It’s not just money. It’s attention. The world juniors is a cheese festival that keeps coming back to Wisconsin after trying and failing to make it in New York City.
They probably think it’s pragmatic. And it is, if you have zero ambition.
The point of international sport is not that it is well-attended, but that it is international. If the point is growing the game – and no major sport should be more growth-focused than hockey – that’s not going to happen by hiding in your safe space.
You want to do something interesting with a world juniors? Go to China. Go to Saudi Arabia. Do it on a frozen pond in Alaska. Do something new.
It’s not going to draw a million attendees, but it will signal a little aspiration, rather than the current terror of failure. It might even be the start of something. And what a weird, wonderful experience it would be for the players. I thought the whole point of holding a tournament that exclusively features kids was pedagogical, rather than financial.
Committing to going elsewhere far more often would de-centre Canada – a good thing for this country. For too long, we’ve been hockey’s insufferable, over-involved hockey parent. Telling other people we’re doing this for little Jimmy, when it’s really big Jimmy who cares.
Eventually, you might get to the point where Canada is one of the kids at the world juniors, not its golden child. And while that would be less fun for TSN and the IIHF, it might be more fun for everyone else.
