the 4th star

Guy in the black tee = Turncoat and a traitor

The Molson is on ice and the onion dip is ready. Now it’s time for some thoughts on the game.

1. Does what happened a week ago matter?
Not unless the Canadians and Americans have a real lack of understanding on what a gold medal game is. Forget about revenge or payback for what happened in Salt Lake or any of that other manufactured garbage; the motivation for Canada (and the United States) is simple. Win and you get a gold medal. The X-factor in this comes from the pressure. Despite going undefeated to this point and being the No. 1 seed come elimination time, the U.S. has little pressure when compared to Canada. No one expected them to be here.

2. Can you get to Ryan Miller?
Yes. With traffic. And more traffic. Canada has enough skill on the blue-line to get the puck on net from the point. Two of the three goals against Slovakia happened using that formula. The Canadians are the bigger team. They’ll have to work the puck back, set up some screens in front, and hope they can get some pucks through the mish-mash of players clogging up the middle. One thing is for certain, the U.S doesn’t have any questions in goal.

3. Has anyone seen Sidney Crosby?
The last two games, the best player in the world hasn’t been the best player in the world. He’s been a non-factor of late, leading to questions of an injury or possibly a lack of chemistry with Jerome Iginla on the side. Canada’s depth has covered his absence and provided a secondary threat akin to what Dale Hawerchuk* did for Canada in 1987, but can guys like Jonathan Toews and Ryan Getzlaf keep it up for another game? That has to be the biggest question up front for Canada today.

4. True or false: Steve Yzerman cringes every time Patrice Bergeron is on the ice?
True. Unless Chris Pronger is out there. Then he just hides under the ledge in the press box suite and prays nothing bad happens for the duration of their shift. Yzerman then ignores the regular text from Gretzky, who jokes that Bertuzzi wasn’t this bad in Turin.

5. What does a win mean for each side?
For the U.S., a victory puts them as the clear world power heading into future tournaments of this magnitude. It would be a benchmark achievement for a program that has nothing but ups and downs over the years. Think about it for a second: They would have beaten a favoured Canadian team twice on Canadian soil. That cannot be ignored (if it happens). Even if they lose, the Americans have made their mark at these Olympics, I think. On the flip side, a Canada win would turn this country upside-down tonight and give the country the usual sense of superiority we have in matters of sticks and pucks. Canada was expected to win, and Canada won. In a bigger Olympic picture sense, while the U.S will walk away from Vancouver with the most medals won in a Winter Games, a Canada win would put an exclamation point on its own medal haul. They didn’t purchase the podium, but leading the gold medal count and having the men’s hockey title still gets you a table at that fancy new restaurant.

*VANOC Wrap Jam

The whole story. Literally. Here’s the link. Text below.

Reporters hugging and applauding Cdn athletes raises objectivity concerns

Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press

WHISTLER, B.C. – An email note this week to television reporters and personalities with the rights to cover the 2010 Vancouver Games was succinct and sobering: Don’t hug Canadian athletes.

Bursting displays of patriotism among journalists over the last two weeks has given the country some cringe-worthy Olympic moments, especially for those who cling to the notion of journalistic independence and objectivity.

That such hands-off policy had to be written down may be alarming, but it may not be entirely surprising given the fever that has gripped the nation. Sometimes the offence has been fleeting, a simple reassuring pat on the elbow for a skier who flamed out on the slopes. Some Chinese journalists have been seen openly cheering for their athletes.

Other times it’s been in your face, such as the sustained round of applause Mellissa Hollingsworth received from journalists following a teary-eyed news conference on her disappointing fifth-place skeleton finish last week.

“Wow,” a surprised Hollingsworth said. “I know journalists are supposed to be independent. That means a lot.”

Toronto Star columnist Chris Zelkovich recently lamented that CTV announcers have shown a striking Canadian bias and pointed to the medals skeleton ceremony where Hollingsworth had been shut out.

The winners — Amy Williams of Great Britain and German racers Szymkowiak Kerstin and Anja Huber — were allowed to pass without mention or comment. But it was different when Canadian gold medallist Jon Montogomery came off the stage after singing “O Canada” during the flag raising.

“Michael Landsberg asked him to sing a couple of bars of the anthem,” wrote Zelkovich, who began column by insisting he wasn’t a kill joy. “Being an obliging type, Montgomery did. Now, if an American announcer had done that, Canadians would cringe. And imagine the reaction if an American announcer referred to ‘this great country’ as Jamie Campbell has repeatedly done.”

Zelovich noted that Canadians must be getting the boost of patriotic fever they want from the CTV-Rogers consortium because the ratings have consistently been through the ceiling.

There was no response for a request for comment from someone at CTV.

Indeed, the pressure to wave the flag is not limited to television.

Email feedback to The Canadian Press when editors decided to run a story on the cigar-smoking, beer-swilling, champagne-sipping antics of Canada’s gold medal women’s hockey team was scathing.

“You guys have made the team as well as Hockey Canada look bad,” Darin Wager wrote on Friday. “Obviously this was written by some idiot who has never played any type of competitive sport. I cannot believe you have bothered to write about this. This is an insult to The Canadian Press not to the women’s hockey team. Come on you guys get a life and support your country instead of trashing it.”

Some even accused the news agency of trying to spoil the women’s celebration.

“Shame on you,” wrote Mike Currie, who conceded the on-ice antics represented poor judgment on the part of the athletes. But he added: “I would think that there are plenty of good stories and photos to share with your audience. Look for the good, not the bad.”

That’s like nails on a chalkboard to journalism ethics professor Stephen Ward, who says the public has lost touch with the notion of news as impartial and balanced.

News is increasingly viewed by the people as an extension of marketing. Ward pointed to the participation of journalists in the Olympic torch run as an example of where reporters were asked to sell the Games. But it’s the charge of being unpatriotic that grates on him the most, partly because there’s a whiff of politics in the accusation.

“You serve your country as a journalist by covering all aspects of the story, the good and the bad,” said Ward, who teaches at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“You don’t get caught in cheerleading and you don’t get caught up in muting your criticism.”

He conceded it’s tough, even for reporters, to choke back the tears when they see performances like bronze medallist Joannie Rochette’s skate in the shadow of her mother’s untimely death.

“I’m not trying to be heartless here,” said Ward, a former correspondent and bureau chief with The Canadian Press. He compared it to the of burden of war correspondents who are sometimes vilified for critical coverage and not waving the flag.

Questions and criticism don’t make journalists less patriotic.

“It’s the same way I felt when I covered conflicts where Canadian soldiers were involved, but I didn’t go around hugging the soldiers.”

There will come a time, Ward said, when pretty tough questions will need to be asked about the Games.

“This is a big event, a major event costing Canadian taxpayers $2 billion and it is controversial. Not everybody wanted the Olympics, therefore that’s more reason for them to take a more critical, independent approach.”

Forget about Pavol Demitra. I wonder how much sleep Mike Babcock got last night. The Detroit head man is trying to become the only coach in history to win a Stanley Cup, a world hockey title, a world junior championship and a gold in the Olympics. Rumour has it he beats the snot out of the Hockey Canada brain trust in cribbage on off-days, too. After struggling with line combinations early on, he seems to have found the right mix up front and on the blue-line. Going with Roberto Luongo after Marty Brodeur’s meltdown was an easy decision (easy as in every Canadian across the planet would have strung Babcock up by the short ones if he didn’t make the switch), but the real coaching is yet to come.

A question came up this morning: Is Babcock is thinking of going back to Brodeur for the gold medal game against he United States? No one outside the Vancouver Canucks fan range seems convinced that Luongo can deliver the mail right to the door, and his play in the last three games have been average at best. Of the five goals he’s given up in the last two games against Russia and Slovakia, two have them have been…um, how shall put this…sluggish. One bad one against each country, with the Lubomir Visnovsky tally just flat-out ugly. You could say he gave up a stinker against Germany, too, but it was a smart speed play by Marcel Goc.

The Olympic tournament has been dotted with terrible coaching to this point. The Russians are still going with Nabokov even as I type this and the Fins waited too long to yank Kipper against the Amerks. Even Sweden should have made a move after Lundqvist struggled in the quarter-final. All decisions to stay the course were not made on the premise that a player can right his own ship under the pressure of the five-ring circus. That logic is flawed, of course, as the margin for error is non-existant in an elimination-type format. This mistake of recognizing a problem and then not acting on it has cost several quality teams in this event. Are the waters still choppy for Canada?

Bad goals killed home side in the first game against the U.S. and you have to wonder if the idea of making a change has been discussed in the coach’s office today. Brodeur probably won’t get another shot in the Canada net, but if Luongo lets in a softy in the first period in the biggest game of the history of the world (if you’re wearing a maple leaf), then how long does ‘Babs’ wait to make a switch?

You only get one chance at this.

Short-track speed skating. As someone asked last night, “What’s the point?” Another question: “Why are their helmets so big?” Over-compensation would be my guess. I’m sorry. I’m not really watching so I can’t answer those queries. Too busy waiting for the spin on how the Own the Podium program, a pre-Olympics medal haul strategy that Canadian Olympic Committee officials have been downplaying with great aplomb after the harsh reality set in that Canada would not win the most medals is suddenly a success now that we have more golds than anyone else. Save your breath. It’s pretty simple: Own the Podium was designed to get Canada more medals than anyone else. That was the bottom-line goal of the program — not sport building, not improving personal bests. Winning the most medals. It is not un-patriotic to say that it failed to do that so let’s move on. Unless backtracking is an Olympic sport now.

Enough of that. Let’s get to the meat. Personally, I think Charles Hamelin looks better here. And for those who think he looks like Sam Roberts — get real. Not even close. On that note, how ’bout some notes from Roberts for the VANOC Wrap Jam this morning? Sorry ladies. No tights for Sammy. The business class will have to suffice.

To end all talk of the trip to the 2010 Spring Games in wonderful Vancouver, behold this BlackBerry photo taken at Manitoba House. Or Manitoba Centreplace. Or Centreplace Manitoba — or whatever the thing is called. That’s me somewhere in the middle there, looking all smiley and mischievous. The woman with the blue scarf looking (unintentionally) directly into the camera is a woman who looks EXACTLY like my mother. Exactly. A dead ringer. The only (slight) difference is the flatter hair. Must have been all the rain. Leather jacket? Check. Same height and everything.

Never did catch her name. Work on the photo took up most of the evening.

VANCOUVER — Let me tell you something about the Olympics.

They have little to do with how a hockey team filled with multi-million dollar professional players finishes, or how people respond to that team though every disappointing loss or spectacular win. They have nothing to do with national broadcasters wearing what look to be red Canadian jerseys on television from a distance in the Vancouver airport (turns out they were red jackets, but close enough for my eyes). They do little to unite the world. They pretend to, but they don’t. The Olympics also have no place in the areas of moral or human decency with regards to the amount of money they take in on the backs of amateur athletes who dedicate a good chunk of their lives to pursue a dream and can barely scrape by enough to live from month to month to reach those seemingly unattainable goals. To profit from those who compete for basically nothing, outside travel, accommodations, and expenses — and maybe a meagre financial government reward if their lucky — is rather appalling. I believe this to be a farce of epic proportions.

Sadly, that is what I ultimately think of the Olympics. I think they’re a big waste of money now, an organization of disorganization all looking for someone to pick up the cheque for the table. Of course, as a Canadian, I’m willing to overlook all of that for some great hockey. That’s just the way I’m programmed. Until I stop thinking about hockey and enter the real world again.

That real world and my Olympic experience came together on Wednesday when I took in the women’s 5000-metre speed skating event in Richmond. It was probably the only opportunity I’ll have to attend an Olympic event, and the timing worked out well: A birthday celebration coupled with a live look at one of Canada’s greatest amateur athletes making her final appearance in five-ring competition. Clara Hughes is from Winnipeg and I’m from Cooks Creek. It couldn’t be a better match. Hughes was in the fifth heat, skating against a German skater who got disqualified for hitting one of the pucks with her skate. At the start, I thought it was just going to be another race — the first four heats were nowhere near the world record pace and did not have any energy to them.

Sidebar: Walking towards the longest line I have ever seen in my life outside the ROO, three Canadian Geese flew by. That was a good sign. Another good sign was prior to that, we checked out the Dutch treat that is Heineken House. It was lame. The Orangewomen did not have good skates later that day.

One of the unique features of the long-track event is the audio wave that traces the lead skater around the ice. As skaters make their way past the sections of people, the roar acts as the trailer, pushing the athlete further along the ice. Right from the start you knew Hughes was having a special skate; her splits through the first two laps were well ahead of pace and the crowd, sensing what was happening, jumped on board the Hughes train and rode it to a first place showing through five heats. I’ll admit it — I was on my feet a few times, too, clapping and feeling all patriotic while thinking this could be a podium time. Someone get this broad a community centre!

I don’t usually hand out praise without cause. Not everything is awesome. Those of you who either follow this or know me personally have a first-hand understanding of this. But watching Hughes finish strong, take a cool-down lap on her blades — screaming and yelling excitement as she glided by — and hug coaches and fellow skaters once her time stood as bronze, it was, quite simply, one of my favourite moments ever experienced in sport.*

When it was all over we had to stand in an exit line for over 30 minutes. And then the real world kicked in again.

VANCOUVER — So they have these things called “Victory Ceremonies” at the end of the day, where the athletes who finished first, second or third are awarded their medals in a small ceremony. These things went on at B.C. Place in Vancouver and in Whistler, though I’m not sure about Cypress Hill. To me, it seems silly to not just award the medals to the athletes right when they get off the oval or the mountain. Do it like in hockey, get the hardware right after the hard game. Nope. I’m told these “events” were dreamed up by the IOC to make the Olympics universally accessible to the average person, as the average person cannot afford to spend upwards of $200 for a ticket to the event they may or may not know the rules to. Cost of the “Victory Celebration” ticket — $26. The access, sitting roughly a universe away from the podium, is appreciated.

Last night was Manitoba Night at B.C. Place, meaning the province programmed the entertainment before and after the medals were handed out. A strong line-up to start, with Doc Walker, Chic Gamine, Inward Eye, Tracy Bone, and Grand Analog knocking it out of the park with their one song chance to inspire. They all killed it, essentially picking up where they left off at the Manitoba social Wednesday night.

Burton Cummings was the headliner for the “Victory Ceremony.” A run down of his set included: No Sugar Tonight/Mother Nature, that one where he sings “Workshop Owner” but that isn’t the title, Laughing, My Own Way to Rock, Running Back to Saskatoon, one slow song I didn’t know so I went to the washroom during it, and roughly 10 other tracks that over-played his welcome 10 songs ago. Word has it other acts who have played the “Victory Ceremony” acts which include INXS and Theory of a Deadman, wrapped up their shows by 8:30 p.m. Burton finished his boogie woogie set well past 9:30 p.m. Probably closer to ten. Who knows? He may still be playing as you read this. We left as the encore machine was firing up.

I like Burton, he’s done some fine work in a great musical career. But come on, man. It was way too long. People got better things to do than clap for the wolfman.

VANCOUVER — Some thoughts on a hockey game from a city where Team Canada merchandise is the official uniform for residents AND visitors. Does everyone guy here own a black ‘Canada’ zip-up? I won’t even get into the number of jerseys out there. There was a massive line-up outside The Bay after the game. As I mentioned this line to a stranger at some party last night, she revealed that she had been in that line now once, not twice but three times already over the past two weeks. She joked, “I could have gone in there a year before the games and bought stuff, but I don’t know why I didn’t.” The mob mentality wagon moves fast, people. Please hold onto the hand rail…

1. The TSN panel continues to show just how terrible they are. Yes, they were right in roasting the Russian coach for not getting Nabokov out of there after the first period (I would have yanked him after the third goal), but the way they continued to hammer the point in the second intermission was embarrassing. You guys are so smart. Funny, I didn’t hear them hammer Brodeur (or Babcock) when the Canadian goaltending looked shaky against the U.S. and Brodeur was kept in. Buddy commentary is alive and well.

2. Will there be a letdown versus Sweden Slovakia? Has that question hit the 1,000,000 mark yet?

3. Luongo looked good. Confident. And the Canadian defence looked quite mobile — especially Doughty and Weber and Keith. The forward line chemistry problem early in the tourney got all the headlines once it was solved, but the back-end is looking quite good. As a unit, they’re playing better and better every game.

4. I rushed around town looking for a screen to catch the first period, so I didn’t hear if there was a reason, but where was Gord Miller? Why wasn’t the No. 1 TSN hockey guy doing the biggest game of the tournament? Also, what the heck was James Duthie doing on the panel? What happened to Darren Millard? Questions.

5. VANOC Wrap Jam. Oh, and thanks Czech Republic. So much for that 16-1 wager.

6. Some site news: I was hoping to get a post in on Clara Hughes and the experience of being there live, but that will have to wait until the plane ride home, me thinks. Look for that tomorrow. Same with the walk through Vancouver after the Canada win. I understand this city has very little reason to cheer for anything hockey-related (much like Winnipeg), but that was just plain ridiculous. I’ll provide some highlights Friday.

VANCOUVER — Just getting ready to head down to Richmond for the speed skating. Looking forward to my first Olympic event live and in person. That’s a pretty good deal for someone who can’t skate. The face value of the ticket next to my computer says $185, before any ‘give it to you the hard way’ fees and stuff like that. Ouch.

I don’t want to put any extra pressure on our athletes today — God knows they’ve wilted enough these games — but if Clara Hughes doesn’t win gold today, she owes me and the people I’m with 185 bucks each. There I said it. We’re probably looking at around $2,000 as a party. If that’s not motivation enough, then I don’t know what is.

VANCOUVER — Well, this is it. We’re about eight hours away from Canada-Russia. This will be a big deal. It was eight years ago to the day that Canada won gold in Salt lake, by the way. Get ready to hear a lot of that on the broadcast tonight. Still no idea where I’ll be tuning in, but I hope to find a shitty little bar that contains no pricy imports or neon signs. I don’t like my chances. For Canada’s chances…well, let’s just say I have a pretty good feeling about today.

Three things to look for:
1. How the Canadians deal with the Russian speed. Look for them to play a man high and try to score on the counter-strike.
2. How the goaltenders handle the pressure. You can be sure both Nabokov and Luongo (and the rest of Canada) would like to see a few easy ones from outside early, just to get a feel for how their games are.
3. The Sharks line. They have to be the difference. Forget about this being a career-defining moment for Luongo. Does Joe Thornton have it in him to rise up to an occasion?

How about some Tragically Hip for today’s VANOC Wrap Jam? What I love about this video is the waiting for the car to warm up. Very Canadian. No worries about a cold vehicle in Vancouver, though. The Spring Olympics are holding very true to form: No snow in the city and umbrellas everywhere.