Full disclosure: I like Bob Nicholson. A lot. No one has ever done more for Canadian international hockey than he has. Ever. He’s the greatest Hockey Canada (or Canadian Amateur Hockey Association) president of all time. And this, coming from a guy who had enormous respect for Murray Costello.
It takes no argument for me to agree with anything Bob Nicholson says. Except today.
As long as the IOC has decided to drop women’s softball and not allow women’s ski jumping in the Olympics, Jacques Rogge is right. You have to put women’s hockey on notice. The Olympic tournament was a dual-meet at best and a sick joke at worst. As Canada and the United States continue to improve dramatically, the rest of the world gets worse.
Start with the semifinals. The U.S. embarrassed 2006 silver medalist Sweden 9-1 while Canada made quick work of Finland — the third best team in the world — 5-0. Heading into the final, Canada had outscored its opposition 46-2 while the United States had outscored its opposition 40-2. That’s not a competition. It’s a four-game default disguised as a hockey tournament.
On Friday, Nichoson did exactly what he had to do. He defended women’s hockey. It’s his job even though he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Nicholson told the Canadian Press, ”Rogge should watch hockey more than just at the Olympics because it is getting better.”
Really? Rogge’s position means his interest is in the Olympic tournament and only the Olympic tournament — as it should be. The rest of it doesn’t matter. Canada and the U.S, have completely dominated women’s hockey since the discipline was admitted to the Winter Olympics in Nagano in 1998. The only time the U.S. and Canada did not appear in the gold medal final was in Torino in 2006 when the Swedes (who seemed to be improving at the time) upset the U.S. and then got drilled by Canada in the gold medal game.
Since then, Sweden has gone backwards while Canada and the U.S. have improved even more dramatically than one might imagine.
“There must be at a certain stage an improvement, we cannot continue without improvement,” Rogge said. ”There is an improvement in the number of nations and we want to see this wider.”
Women’s hockey has a problem. There are only two Olympic-level countries. The IOC kicked out women’s fast pitch softball even though a dozen countries were nipping at the heels of the dominant Americans. Once softball was dumped, you had to figure women’s hockey was next on the IOC’s radar.
Thursday night’s Canada-U.S. game was terrific. The rest of the tournament was a horrible, sick joke. It was a waste of time, effort and money. This isn’t 1930 anymore. If other countries can’t compete after a dozen years and as Cassie Campbell pointed out on CTV, the funding in other countries has either stopped or been limited, then what’s the point? Get rid of it.
Although, I’ll admit, if the IOC decided to allow Canada and the U.S. to play a best-of-seven Olympic championship in 2014, I could go for that.