So how did Canada’s 5-3 loss to Russia in the final of the World Junior Hockey Championships look in the cold light of dawn? Well, just as ugly as she did when we went to bed.
Leading 3-0 after two periods, Canada was in complete control of Wednesday night’s final. They outskated the Russians, out-hit them, out-chanced them and out-worked them.
But in the third period, Canada collapsed — shockingly. The Canadians gave up three early goals and went on to give up five unanswered. Canada lost its aggressiveness, failed to sustain any forechecks and got back on its heels. As a result, the players got scared, head coach Dave Cameron couldn’t settle them down and it looked like the textbook example of a choke.
Frankly, I have trouble with that. They’re teenagers after all. They make mistakes, as all kids make mistakes. From a distance, it appeared the coaching staff simply wasn’t prepared for a Canadian team to get nervous. The players fell back into the proverbial defensive shell, got caught out of position, their legs froze and at one point they seemed out of condition and out of gas. And the coaches had no answer.
This was a team that got nervous and the coaching staff had no idea how to change the mental approach. After two great periods, they changed everything they did. Instead of playing hockey with reckless abandon as they did in the first two periods, instead of going hard for the goal (as if they were behind), they appeared frightened to death, afraid to make an error, afraid to be “the goat.”
Fear is a team’s worst enemy. Wednesday night, fear cost a very good Canadian under-20 hockey team a world championship gold medal.