Hockey Shocker?

I don't pretend to know thing one about hockey except that it's traditionally played on ice and that a lot of my fellow Canadians figure it's better than God's Holy Word. The 2011 World Junior Hockey Championship game played last night and Canada lost to Russia...oh well, shit happens. What really grabbed my attention was a summary I watched on CHCH news out of Hamilton. Let me tell you that I've rarely been as completely pissed off as I was after two minutes of that report.

The facts are that the Canadian boys were up 3-0 going into the third period, had "dominated" the first two periods and saw gold on the horizon. But the Russian boys wanted to win as much because they went ahead and scored 5 goals in less than a quarter of an hour. That's pretty much unheard of, as far as I've been able to gather. Well, good for them. They won and that's that.

But guess what, our boys won Silver - that's second in all the hockey playing world. A Canadian was named MVP of the whole tournament. Similar honours went to Canadian forwards and defencemen. I am proud to say that a team of young guys from the True North Strong and Free played their best in Buffalo, New York and captured the world'a attention and brought home silver medals.

So, what the fuck's wrong with the rest of you?

Two periods of cheering and reckless abandon in the stands turned to silence after the first two Russian third period goals. What the fuck? Throngs of people who had waited in line for hours to see the game came streaming out of the arena like rats from a sinking ship when the boys lost. What the fuck? The news report that stuck this all in my head went on about how wildly disappointing the result was and when they interviewed the Canadian Goalies mom on the air I half expected to see the word's "Grieving Mother" underneath her picture. They also made sure to show footage of the boys weeping openly on the ice. What. The. Hairy. Fuck.

Maybe I don't get it. I've never been a Sporto-Jock-Musclehead and competition, frankly, sickens me. Yes, I understand that our boys went through most of that tournament like 90, go-go-go all the way. They played fabulously until the Russians stopped them - just plain stopped them. Again, shit happens. But I saw spectators commenting on television spewing crap like "disgraceful third period" "incomprehensible" "totally unheard of" and worse when describing the Canadian performance in those last 15 minutes. To that I say, "Grab a fucking life." Seriously, I'd like to see some of these fans strap on a pair of skates and try to do better.

The Canadian Junior Hockey Team is a group of very talented boys - but they're still just boys. Their country pinned all of their hopes on them for gold and I can't even imagine what a weight that must have been. I don't blame them for losing because, as I've mentioned already, shit happens. Why not celebrate the fact that they played their guts out, performed most admirably and took silver? I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about.

And hey, at least they crushed the Americans.