Are We Really Complaining?

I'm not sure this is how Roberto Luongo and Shane Doan imagined the 2021 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship would start, but the Canadians sit at 0-3 after stunning losses to Latvia, the US, and Germany. Canada has struggled to find any trace of offensive output being that they've scored a whopping two goals in those three games while surrendering ten, so there's clearly some issues with the chemistry on the team that Luongo built as they look to find their first win of the tournament on Wednesday against Norway.

What has me bothered, though, isn't the record of the team over in Riga. It's not the number of players who opted out - either by choice or due to injury - that forced Canada into secondary choices for players. It's not the coaching being done by Gerard Gallant or the effort put in by the players on the ice. While all of this has contributed, in part, to Canada's surprising oh-and-three record, I'm bothered more by the expectation some fans have that Canada will go into this tournament and come away with a gold medal while stomping all over nations like Italy, Kazakhstan, and Latvia.

We've seen upsets all over this tournament early on because of how the scheduling for the national leagues in Europe are played, allowing the players from their respective nations to gather earlier and work as a team in anticipation for the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship. As a result, these teams are generally better prepared than the quickly-assembled Canadian and US teams who have been playing on separate teams until the beginning of May.

On top of that, are we really that arrogant to suggest that we should never lose to the likes of a Belarus or Latvia or Norway? There are good players coming out of those countries at this point, and it seems very apparent that the world is closing the gaps on the "superpowers" when it comes to having the best players in the world still playing NHL hockey.

For years, we've heard how the KHL was more on the same level as the AHL when it came to developing its players, but that's clearly not the case any longer when it comes to teams like Belarus, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and, of course, Russia developing their players there. The key is that these players are playing higher levels of hockey than ever before and, accordingly, they're better when they arrive on the international stage. When Canada sends a team of players who missed the NHL playoffs, the results seen in this tournament should surprise no one.

I have made the case over and over and over again on this blog that upsets are good for the game as a whole. Those teams who have defeated powerhouse countries for the first time since this tournament started have something tangible they can bring home when the tournament's over to say, "We're not there yet, but we're getting closer." At the end of the day, that makes for better tournaments in future years.

One year ago, everyone lamented the number of blowouts we saw at the IIHF World Junior Championship. The solution I proposed was to do nothing as the countries that were serious about improving would fund their national programs accordingly. As you can see at this year's IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship, there are countries who have invested in their programs while players from those countries, specifically, have invested in themselves by seeking bigger and better opportunities to improve. We're seeing that happen in front of us, and yet we're complaining about Canada not winning?

I gte the national pride when it comes to the game, but, to use a golf analogy, we're the yard marker that the rest of the world is trying to reach. Occasionally, the wind is blowing just right that it pushes one of those teams past the yard marker on a drive as we've seen, but that's the crux of being the yard marker: everyone is aiming for you. Just as the other teams have improved, Canada needs to do the same with this assembled group as the likes of McDavid, Crosby, and MacKinnon are still playing NHL hockey and are unavailable to bolster the roster.

As Canadians, we can grumble about losing, but we're also part of an international hockey community that needs more good teams to challenge the status quo. Having the same four-to-six teams compete for medals every year gets stale quickly, so having nations like Norway, Kazakhstan, and Latvia come in and shock the world with a big win is good for the game. With Germany defeating Canada today, their ascension up the ranks in international hockey continues as well.

Canadians have been blessed with some magical moments, a ton of great players, and a pile of hardware from international competitions over the years and decades, and we shouldn't take any of that for granted by thinking we simply showed up and won. That's not how these competitions work, and the teams that were nothing more than scrimmage practice squads at one point are now defeating the teams that used to embarrass them. That's what you want to see from these teams - constant improvement with a focus on, one day, joining the superpowers on an annual basis thanks to those improvements.

We're not there yet, but we're closer than ever to having a truly international game where any of the teams entered at the World Championship level can win the gold medal. Yes, it sucks that Canada is 0-3 to start this tournament, but it's a pretty clear message that the team we sent hasn't been able to match up well with its opposition - a sign that the game has indeed grown and the rest of the world is closing the gap on the superpowers.

Are we really complaining about having more competitive games?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!