A ‘heartbreaking’ end to Canada’s hopes for a medal in men’s hockey

Opinion

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This article was published 16/02/2022 (1301 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING—Maybe you will remember something about Canada’s men’s hockey team at the Beijing Olympics, but it’s hard to make that bet. Four years ago Canada collected spare players to make an NHL-free team, and this time it was a harder task again, and the result was a team that lost 2-0 to Sweden in the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, and that was about right. Down went Canada. Ah well.

“So many shifts I think we were trying to survive and get pucks out,” said defenceman Maxim Noreau, who was on Canada’s bronze-medal winning team at the Pyeongchang Olympics. “At the end of the day you’ve got to make plays, and we didn’t have enough players making tape-to-tape passes, and they’re throwing it sometimes out. Sometimes it’s OK to survive, but against a team like that we need puck possession, we need to get to their end.

“They’re good defensively. They made it hard on us.”

Indeed, Canada generated so little, in a game that mostly looked like what happens when you take 40 angle grinders and turn them on and throw them all in a metal bathtub at the same time. Canada iced a puck, turned a puck over, watched Sweden nearly score, and took a penalty in the first 33 seconds of the game. They got better, but the Swedish team had the better chances on the night. Still, it was a scoreless game until midway through the third period when Toronto’s Jack McBain tried a drop pass at his own blue line and Sweden’s Lucas Wallmark grabbed it and roofed it off the outstretched stick of defender Tyler Wotherspoon for a 1-0 lead with 10:15 left. An empty netter came later.

“Their game plan was right,” said Canadian coach Claude Julien. “Their game plan was get on them, don’t give them any space, and don’t let them get going. They were honest. I mean, we had the puck and as much as we tried sometimes I mean, these guys are humans, they’re not machines, and I think a little bit of fatigue factor came in (after playing Tuesday night).

“But, you know, again, not using that as an excuse. I thought the guys dug deep and they tried and they really cared, and at the end of the day, it really boils down to one little mistake and one bad break.”

“I think the guys did a really good job, to be honest,” said Noreau. “Compared to four years ago, they had three months to prepare, they knew who they were going to play with, they knew what their power play was going to be like. Other (countries), some guys probably knew each other because their population of guys was a little bit smaller. But we’re not going to use that as an excuse. A loss like that wasn’t about whether we came together or not. We just needed to get inside more and create more havoc around the net.”

“You know, some guys got to Davos on the 29th of January,” said forward David Desharnais, referencing their pre-Olympic camp. “It’s not even a month. So you know, getting to know your role, getting to know how to play with each other, getting to know the other teams and all that. So you know, we tried our best, and it just wasn’t enough.”

That’s the story. Olympic hockey without NHL players is often a dour affair even when countries have fair warning, and all the Slovakian upsets of the United States in the world will have trouble making it worthwhile. Canada gathered this squad and worked really hard and they weren’t very good. But they tried.

So they said goodbye. As 37-year-old captain Eric Staal stood in a Beijing mixed zone he was asked where his career goes next. It may be over.

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“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. Decompress after this, and we’ll see. But thoroughly happy that I was here. Thoroughly enjoyed this experience with our guys and competing again out there; it was a treat, as it always is, representing Canada and playing.”

And at the other end of the spectrum, goaltender Matt Tomkins is 27 and from Edmonton and he has chased hockey through the NCAA, the ECHL, the AHL and now Sweden. It wasn’t his fault they lost; he was good. But he’ll never have a chance like this again.

“Heartbreaking,” said Tomkins quietly. “At a loss for words, really. It’s tough to be on the losing end of a game like that. You know, obviously an amazing experience, incredible honour to be here at the Olympics and, you know, have the chance to wear the maple leaf and represent the country. So that’s something that I’ll remember the rest of my life.”

You may not remember it, and that’s fine. They will.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur