Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Olympic fever hitting fans
Sick with worry, Team Canada supporters are going a little overboard
By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun
In Canada, we expect our leaders, whether they're prime ministers or mayors of large cities, to be idiots. And they rarely disappoint us.
But we expect our hockey fans to be astute. What has gone wrong? Why are our hockey fans acting like prime ministers?
Our Olympic team hasn't even been named yet and already, hockey fans are in an uproar over the goaltending situation.
Granted, Canadians are passionate about this team and that's fine. But sensible actions, by definition, don't let passion get in the way of reason.
The latest flap has to do with the possibility that Martin Brodeur might not be named to the Olympic team.
Brodeur, who was the No. 2 goalie in Nagano, seems shocked. So are his many fans. But let's keep in mind that the cause of this uproar is nothing more than a report in a New York newspaper.
The Post is a respected paper with a good sports section and quality journalists, but, like all of us in the business, their accuracy rate is below 100%.
Do Canadian hockey fans have more faith in New York newspapers than in their own Olympic braintrust?
Apparently they do. Last week, the majority had not the slightest problem leaping to the double-barrelled assumption that a.) Patrick Roy is a liar; and b.) Wayne Gretzky is an incompetent.
The fact that there is not the slightest evidence to support either assumption seems to have troubled hardly anyone.
They assumed that Roy had lied about his reasons for leaving the team, even though Roy has never had any aversion to being forthright.
He has always been willing to express his displeasure publicly, as people who remember his days in Montreal with the Canadiens should know.
If he felt he had been screwed around by Gretzky and the Olympic staff, he would have told us -- just as he told us in 1998 that the reason for the Colorado Avalanche's poor playoff performance that year was the involvement of so many key players in the Olympics, including himself.
Canadian fans were also quick to agree that Gretzky had been stupid not to give the job to Roy unequivocally.
Here's what Gretzky did.
He told Roy he would be named to the team. He told him that he would have the inside track to the first-string job -- that it would be his to lose. And he told him that another goalie would play one of the qualifying games.
What's wrong with that? Suppose he promises the job to Roy and then in February, Roy is going through one of those stretches where he can't stop a beachball.
Now, in a single-game elimination tournament, you have a starting goalie in a slump because a promise must be kept. Is this really what Canadians want?
Here's another promise you can take to the bank. Brodeur has not been removed from the list of those being considered for the Olympic team.
That cannot be said for some people who attended the September training camp. Don't count on Pierre Turgeon being part of the Salt Lake City proceedings. Jason Arnott won't be there either. Neither will Brenden Morrow. Or Richard Matvichuk.
Some others are definitely on the bubble, getting support from some members of the Olympic hierarchy but not from others. In that group, you could put Scott Stevens, Alex Tanguay, Wade Redden, Keith Primeau, Ed Jovanovski, Eric Desjardins, Mark Recchi and Joe Nieuwendyk.
When it comes down to the crunch, look for the speedsters to get the nod ahead of the others.
As for the netminding, the best Canadian veteran goalie in the NHL has been Curtis Joseph. He has to have a spot on the team. The other two will go either to Brodeur, Ed Belfour or Sean Burke.
Originally, the plan had been to take a young goalie like Roberto Luongo, but sentiment has swung away from that view. The final vote is not in, but if the decision were being made today, the Olympic goalies would be Joseph, Brodeur and Burke.
Brodeur is felt to have earned his shot in 1998 and no Canadian goalie has more Olympic experience than Burke. He's also playing extremely well.
The announcement of the team is more than two weeks away. In the meantime, hockey fans would do well to act like hockey fans and not like politicians.
But perhaps it's too late. Perhaps Jean Jacques Rousseau was right when he said, "There is no doubt that people are, in the long run, what the government makes of them."
2002 Games Columnists
