When it comes to hockey the Christmas season has been a rather special time in recent years with the growing profile of the World Junior Men’s Championship, and the emergence on television here of the Spengler Cup.
The two events this season were very much the ying and yang of sports.
Team Canada at the Spengler Cup excelled, not losing a game, in capturing this countries 16th Spengler Cup, and the team’s fourth title in the last five years.
The team is one I also admire, a bunch of guys, most not quite good enough to excel in the National Hockey League, but carving out fine careers in Europe, giving up their holiday season to gather to play for their country.
This year’s team was as dominant as any in recent memory showing a combination of strong offence and stingy defence.
The team scored 19 goals over four games, which typically means you would be in those games.
But the defence was so stellar, allowing only two goals and setting a record for fewest goals allowed in the tournament, that games were never close.
Goaltender Zach Fucale made 26 saves for his second straight shutout in the Cup final.
Fucale, who is playing for Orlando of the ECHL this season, gave up just one goal in three starts. He finished with a 0.33 goals-against average and .986 save percentage. He is a remarkable 10-0-1 in three appearances at the Spengler Cup.
In big games goaltending matters and Fucale starred at the Spengler Cup.
On the yang side of things the Canadian team at the Junior event was into full Jekyll and Hyde mode.
The Canadian team didn’t go into the event expected to challenge for gold, and probably not even a medal.
But, in their first game they upset the United States and that set expectations higher among many fans than was truly warranted.
Game two was of course a disaster. They faced Russia, who were upset by the host Czech Republic so needed a win badly. The Russians came hard. The Canadian goaltending, an anticipated soft spot sagged, and the Russians won 6-0. It was the worst loss in Canadian history at the event.
As a fan, the loss stung, but only briefly. The results of sports I have finally come to realize are not life and death events. They in truth don’t matter one iota in terms of the important things in life, health, liberty, freedoms. They are great diversions that can be savoured for sure, but when a team you cheer for wins, you don’t get a gold medal as a fan. When they lose the sun rises the next morning.
And, this year the sun rose brightly as the Canadians who many saw as unlikely gold medalists, proved the pundits wrong winning it all.
The gold medal game was against the same Russian squad, this time coming out on top by a 4-3 score.
The game was marred by some absolutely awful referee calls. It is understandable that mistakes are made, they are as they say human, but when one questionable call piles upon another it is simply not good enough. It really left a bad taste to what should have been a memorable win.
I should note here that the bad calls at the World Juniors were not unique. A weekend game between Winnipeg and Minnesota was horrendous as well.
One can appreciate many hockey calls are discretionary in nature, but in general, the profession needs to be better, or rules reworked to be more black and white in nature.
