Giving 'er in Innsbruck

This post marks my return from a relatively lengthy - and unintended - hiatus. Having survived incredibly death-defying trials and tribulations (five exams, a skateboarding injury, strep throat, and a haircut), I'm ready to get back to the hockey-talk, and it should be a busy few days.

To start off, I'll deal with the World Hockey Championships, namely to discuss Canada's disappointing performance so far. A tie against Finland today, coupled with a 5-4 loss to the Swedes less than 24 hours beforehand, gives one some cause for concern. Defensive breakdowns have embarassed the squad constantly, and neither Brodeur or Luongo is playing at his usual (read: superhuman) level. This is undoubtedly a result of not having been on the ice much this year, but I don't think anyone is interested in excuses, least of all those two goalies. They might appreciate a little more help from their skaters, though; it hasn't been uncommon to see three Canadian defenders chasing the puck along the boards in their own end, only to watch an opposition player scoop it up and begin to cycle it around a suddenly-spacious offensive zone.

Though the defence has struggled, Canada's scoring has been decent, thanks to the high-octane Nash-Thornton-Gagne line. Thornton and Nash are currently tied for the tournament lead with 10 points, and the latter is no.1 with 8 goals so far. Rick Nash's production is a very bright spot for Hockey Canada, and the line's play takes some of the sting away from the playmaking attempts of the other 15 skaters on the bench, which gets fairly awkward and ugly at times. The defence seems to have trouble advancing the puck to the forwards, and in today's game, Chris Phillips was forced to take it into the zone by himself a number of times. In the offensive zone, at least, missed passes can be made up for by tenacious puck pursuit, which has been displayed best by the Grind Line of Ryan Smyth, Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby.

Don't think that I'm turning into the anti-homer, à la Damien Cox; on the contrary, I - along with any other fan of Canadian hockey - expect a lot out of this team, and one would be hard-pressed to convince me that they're operating at 100% right now. They were out-hustled by a Swedish team that is missing its four biggest guns, including regular captain Mats Sundin, a player who some consider to be the world's best when he's healthy, Peter Forsberg, and Nicklas Lidstrom, who is easily one of the world's five best active defencemen. And of course the Canadians were tired for the match against the Finns, but it was also an effort marred by a lack of disciplined play, though the squad showed some great determination for a few minutes in the third period to overcome their two-goal deficit and tie things up at 3.

For many other hockey-playing nations, this would have been a satisfactory performance thus far, but not for the team who entered this tournament as the clear favourite. It's time for these guys to start playing the way they can play - ferocious forechecking, conscientious defence, simple-yet-elegant passing, blistering quickness, thunderous contact, and shooting reminiscient of a firing squad. It's a tough task to achieve the usual lofty goals when many of these guys came into the tournament cold, compared to many of the European players who have been suited up for teams in their home countries, but these 23 guys are among the world's elite, so if anyone can accomplish that task, it may well be these men that do it.

Go Canada.