Article by: Dan Ryan
In any Olympic Games, the athletes of the host country often face significant pressure to perform well and to bring glory to their country through athletic triumphs on home soil.
But no athlete or team in Olympic history has been under more scrutiny and faced more pressure to succeed than this year’s Canadian men’s hockey team, seeking to win their first gold medal since defeating the United States at Salt Lake City in 2002.
To put it quite simply, hockey is life in Canada. Baseball may be America’s pastime, but hockey is in the blood of every Canadian man, woman and child. As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper put it to Sports Illustrated’s Michael Farber, “I can’t offhand think of anything in any country where any team would be under such universal expectation of a gold and nothing less.”
Just how heavy is the weight being put on the shoulders of the Canadian hockey contingent? An intrasquad scrimmage over the summer sold out Calgary’s Pengrowth Saddledome. Yes, that’s right: a scrimmage filled a 19,000 seat arena.
Sidney Crosby, Joe Thornton and company must win the gold medal, or there’s a chance that the entire Vancouver Olympiad will be deemed a complete and utter failure. Success will have the entire nation flying high for years; failure will see the entire nation turn on their skating heroes.
The Canadians are the favorites to win the men’s gold medal, but they will face some stiff competition, specifically from their neighbors to the west across the Pacific Ocean: Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and the rest of the Russians.
The Russian roster features more firepower than the Cold War-era Soviet Union, and has an offensive explosive enough to strike fear into the heart of even the best goalies. Offensive weapons at head coach Vyacheslav Bykov’s disposal include Ovechkin, Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Alexander Semin and former NHL standout Sergei Fedorov.
So where are the Americans in all of this pre-Olympic fanfare? Firmly planted in the role of underdogs, and that’s the way some of them like it. As Team USA forward Patrick Kane told Yahoo! Sports’ Puck Daddy blog, “I think it’s definitely something we can use in our favor, especially playing against Canada. With the crowd, it’s going to be 100 percent at their back. If we can get up on an early lead, maybe use the crowd against them, maybe it can go in our favor too.”
In fact, in terms of seeding, the Canadians are first, followed by the Russians and the Swedes. Uncle Sam’s skaters find themselves seeded sixth, behind Finland and the Czech Republic and just ahead of Switzerland and Slovakia.
Despite the heaping helpings of disrespect being served to them across the board, the Americans remain quietly confident about their chances.
“We’re not coming here just to win bronze or silver,” Kane told Puck Daddy. “I can honestly say everyone wants to win gold.”
