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| Frans Nielsen of Team Europe tries to defend Sidney Crosby Credit: Nathan Denette - The Canadian Press |
By Adam Bernard
The World Cup of Hockey has been great for the month of
September. Usually hockey-starved fans are just getting some pre-season action
right about now, but the World Cup has provided us puck junkies with competitive
hockey about three weeks earlier than usual. The prelim play was good and
allowed people to size up the field. Once the round-robin play got going, the
games got even better. But once the semis rolled around, unless you were in
Canada, the buzz went away, the urge to watch wasn’t what it was, and the end
of the tournament has seemingly become stale.
Much like college basketball’s March Madness, the best part
about is the beginning. At first, you have the conference tournaments before
the actual tournament begins, where there’s always the possibility of a team
clinching a birth in to the NCAA Tournament field that wasn’t in the mix
initially. Some bubble teams burst, some improve their resumes. To me, that was
the equivalent of the prelim play because we’re getting to see what teams were
made of.
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| The descending buzz of the World Cup is similar to that of March Madness Credit: Bob Donnan - USA Today Sports Images |
Once the actual NCAA Tournament begins, almost everyone is
in to it, whether it’s because they like good sports or because they filled out
a bracket for their office pool, interest is high. This is similar to what the
beginning of round-robin play in the World Cup was like: everyone (except maybe
the Czechs and Team Europe – boy did Europe prove us wrong) had a chance to win
this thing (with Canada being the heavy favorites), and hockey fans from all of
the participating countries were in to it. But just like college basketball
after the first weekend of games when most people’s brackets are in the
recycling pile, the field of legitimate World Cup contenders started to thin.
Pool B had some excitement throughout (especially the North
American squad), but Finland’s performance was a disappointment. While that
didn’t necessarily contribute to the lack of strong interest as the World Cup
is in the final stretch, Team USA’s performance certainly did. Their clunker
against Europe foreshadowed worse things to come. A lackluster showing against
the Canadians deemed their final game against the Czech Republic meaningless.
If Team USA had anything to play for in their last game, things would have been
different, especially if they had made it to the World Cup’s final four.
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| USA Goalie Jonathan Quick was looking behind him for pucks more than he would liked during the World Cup of Hockey Credit: Frank Gunn - AP |
I’m not saying Team Europe doesn’t have a chance to win
tonight and force it to a third and final game. They didn’t play poorly in Game
One and hung with the Canadians until midway through the third period in the
3-1 loss. Even if they do win and make it to Saturday night, do you really
think Team Canada will lose two games in a row, on home soil, when they haven’t
lost a game since the first prelim game (which in hindsight was probably the
best thing to happen to Team Canada and the worst to Team USA)? This tournament
is over either tonight or Saturday, and it won’t be over a moment too soon. I
can’t promise that I won’t be flipping over to NHL.TV to check out some of the
NHL pre-season slate, especially if Canada pulls away early.
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