By Jim Coffman
The idea of Canada as our continent’s dominant sports power will take some getting used to. When do the next Summer Olympics start? Yes, I know the U.S. finished atop the overall medal table in Vancouver (with 37 total medals to 30 for second-place Germany), but the Canucks’ 14 golds to the Americans’ nine? Yikes.
Canada does have 33 million people, so I guess it isn’t completely surprising that a few dozen of them excel at obscure, icy sports and that some of them managed to win individual and team competitions at their home facilities. I’m just hoping that, given the whole 300-million-population thing we have going for us, maybe we can find a distance skier or two by the time the 2014 games roll around. If we can dominate men’s Nordic combined, surely we can finish in the top 10 of a cross country ski race or two.
“We won almost twice as many bronzes as anyone else (13-7 over Germany)!” just doesn’t do it as a rallying cry. And for the last time (for the next two years), we understand that the Olympics aspire to be something more than countries mining for maximum medals but it is the score (or the standings) that elevates sport above standard entertainment. If we don’t have a horse in the race, we aren’t fans. You can cast about from sport to sport for compelling individual stories, but in the end the most sensible thing is to zero in on the home country competitors and root, root, root.
One cool thing about the American medals: No one won more than one gold. The U.S. medal haul was truly a team effort, even if the winners almost all triumphed in the most individual way possible (competing alone out on the ice or the mountain or the speedskating track)
And, of course, it was all capped off by that last little hockey game. Regarding the Olympic finale, well, let’s start with congrats to the Canadian men’s hockey team and especially to the local trio (Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews). Clearly we shouldn’t have felt sorry for those guys after last weekend’s shocking preliminary round loss to the U.S. I thought coming back from that setback would be too tough a task for the Leaf-wearers, but I didn’t count on the Russians absolutely lying down in the quarterfinals (losing to Canada 7-3). Still, the home team was on the verge of blowing a 3-0 third-period lead to the Slovaks in the semis (when I thought they surely would run out of gas) when they found a way to hold on to a 3-2 win. And in the super-charged final they had adrenaline to spare, even for overtime.
In the end, we still remember that going into the Games we were very much just hoping for a medal for the U.S. team, don’t we? And then there was the fact that this result was part of our just barely edging those aforementioned Germans for the win in the overall silver medal count (15-13)! Also not quite inspiring now, is it? And that is officially my last comment about 2010 medal standings.
Miller’s Crossing
American goalie Ryan Miller saved his worst for last, simply whiffing on Sid Crosby’s relatively innocuous shot from a tough angle only a few minutes into overtime.
Otherwise, though, it was an awesome Games for Miller and we look forward to a repeat performance from him in 2014 (and we try not to think about the fact that star Swedish goalie Henrik Lundvquist couldn’t even manage to get his team into the medal rounds after back-stopping them to the Gold in 2006).
There was also more than a little sporting justice in Crosby’s goal; it evened up the breaks for a Canadian team that had sent a ridiculous two pucks off the post in two minutes early in the third period.
Pole Dance
And for my final Olympic bit, in honor of Casimir Pulaski Day, we make special note of the fact that Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk won the mass start classic 30K women’s cross country event on Saturday to become the first-ever Polish woman to take home a gold medal at the Winter Games. She won a thrilling duel with Norway’s Marit Bjoergen, prevailing in the 18-mile-plus race by all of three-tenths of a second.
Bulls Beat
Back in Chicago . . .
The next few weeks feel like big trouble for the Bulls. They play eight of their next nine games against teams that are currently above .500, and not only did Joakim Noah suffer a significant health setback over the weekend but Luol Deng was forced to the sideline on Saturday when, surprise, surprise, a seemingly minor injury flared into something potentially more dire, at least to Deng.
Last year a sore leg caused Deng to see multiple doctors before finding one who gave him the diagnosis off a stress fracture that Deng decided would end his season. This time Deng banged knees with an opponent during the Bulls’ win over the Pacers in the middle of last week. Derrick Rose did something similar over the weekend but didn’t even need treatment on Sunday and will start Monday versus Atlanta. Deng on the other hand said on Saturday that Wednesday’s injury had caused some swelling in the Friday victory and then became very painful in Saturday’s loss at the Pacers. Uh oh.
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Jim Coffman rounds up the sports weekend every Monday in this space. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on March 1, 2010