Tokyo-Bound Tomorrow

These lads, along with the rest of their Canadian teammates, are off to Tokyo tomorrow for the 2020 Summer Olympics taking place in 2021. Yes, that's a little wordy, so I'll be using "Toyko Olympics" to describe this Olympiad through the rest of this article. What you see to the left, though, is the Team Canada men's field hockey team posing in their gear as they prepare for the biggest tournament in their careers thus far. It's always weird when you are going to a tournament, but don't have a schedule, so let's get that out of the way today as we find out who and when Canada will be playing!

Before we begin this foray into the Canadian men's field hockey schedule, I should remind everyone that Canada is ranked tenth in the world as per the FIH World Rankings. These rankings are achieved through a points system, and it accounts nearly all 100 nations playing the sport at the international level. What should be noted is that these point totals may fluctuate based on games played at the Tokyo Olympics, so it may be good to check back once the tournament ends to see who is ranked at what position.

Schedule

Canada will open the tournament on July 24, but there are games being played on July 23 in Tokyo. Broadcast information is listed below for the games.

• July 24: Canada vs. #5 Germany - 5am CT.
• July 25: Great Britain* vs. Canada - 9:45pm CT.
• July 27: #3 Netherlands vs. Canada - 6:45am CT.
• July 28: #2 Belgium vs. Canada - 8pm CT.
• July 29: Canada vs. #14 South Africa - 10:15pm CT.
• July 31/August 1: men's quarterfinals (TBD).
• August 2/3: men's seminfinals (TBD)
• August 4: men's bronze medal game - 8:30pm CT.
• August 5: men's gold medal game - 5am CT.

Canada's coverage, as seen in the past, will adapt among the three broadcasters - TSN, Sportsnet, and CBC - depending on how the men do and how Canadian athletes are doing in other sports, so be prepared for CBC's coverage of this schedule to update as the Canadian men play. With CBC as the main Canadian broadcaster, they may move field hockey events to one of Sportsnet or TSN, so have that remote handy if you want to see these games!

The weird part is that the US coverage of field hockey is on CNBC and NBC Sports Network, but neither station is covering any lives games, and they'll only show the medal round on tape delay. I guess that's what happens when the US doesn't have team in the tournament - it's an afterthought.

You also may have noticed the asterisk next to Great Britain on the schedule, and that's because Great Britain doesn't exist as a team on the FIH World Rankings. As you may be aware, Great Britain is a mixture of athletes from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales at the Olympics, so they technically blend the sixth-ranked English squad with the 17th-ranked Welsh team and the 19th-ranked Scottish squad to form a bit of a British all-star team.

It should be noted that Jacob Draper and Rupert Shipperley are first Welsh male hockey players to represent Great Britain at an Olympics since David Hacker did so in Sydney more than 20 years ago while Alan Forsyth, a reserve, is from Scotland. It's been two decades, but there finally is representation from across Great Britain on the men's field hockey squad.

With all that being said, Canada is in for a tough preliminary round against the fifth-ranked team, the British all-star team, the third-ranked team, the second-ranked team, and the fourteenth-ranked team on the planet. That's not to say that Canada can't upset any of these teams, but stranger things have happened. The final game against South Africa should be a fairly even match for Canada, and that might be the game that determines who advances to the quarterfinal if everything plays out according to the rankings.

What I do know is that this tournament features the best of the best teams playing at their best with an Olympic gold medal on the line, and that experience and competition will only make Canada better. They're already a heckuva good team, but having games against the world's elite will allow them to improve even more.

I'm excited for Canada in this tournament because it's not out of the question that they can upset a team or two, but it's certainly going to make them better for future tournaments and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. While they may seem like they're medal long shots at this tournament, they're certainly building towards something bigger.

Get excited, Canada, because the Canadian men's field hockey team is two weeks out from hitting the pitch in Tokyo where anything can happen!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the pitch!