Canada Needs Forward Scoring

Defense Wins Championships, but a lack of of Offense can be easily and lose them.

Most people are familiar with clichés in sports.  Giving 100%, one day a time, it is a process and all the rest.Then there is this one that we hear in just about every major team sport, defense wins championships and/or pitching wins championships.  For the most part I will agree with that, however, there is one important piece that it is usually neglected with this statement.  What about offense???

We heard it going into the Super Bowl about the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks.  In this particular case defense did win Seattle a championship.  But one could also argue that it was good offense as the score ended up 43 to eight.  It is nice to say the defense wins championships, but there is also a strong case to be made that a lack of offense can lose a championship.

As a Braves fan over the years I have particularly learned this lesson.  Back in the nineties the Braves had consistently one of the best rotations in all baseball. Hall of Famers like Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz (soon to be).  Of the 14 straight division titles the Braves managed to win but one World Series.  I have no problem with that, they won one ....still more than the Cubs have won.  With that said they had a chance and deserve to win more.  They had the pitching, they did not get the offense when they needed it. It is nice to be able to shut teams down but a 1-0 loss is still a loss.

Even in the women's Canadian Olympic Hockey team, when they wind up playing the U.S. for the gold medal the key will be who can score and maybe more importantly who can score early.  The longer the game against the U.S. goes without a goal the more it favors the U.S. club.  They're young, fast, skilled and have a lot of offensive game breakers who have quick strike ability.  Canada too has the ability to put the puck in the net but the longer they take to do so the more difficult it will be to beat goaltender Jesse Vetter, who seems to always get better and more comfortable as the game goes on. Again shutting down offence is great but the taunt 'SCOREBOARD' still rings loud and clear

Big ice does not necessarily make for big offence

This is what worries me about the Men`s Team Canada at the Sochi Olympics. They have arguably the best defense in the tournament.  Their blue-line can shut down a lot of good teams speedy high end talent.  They're also the ones generating the majority of the offense right now. All except for one game vs. Latvia the forwards have not look good and have failed to produce offensively. Jeff Carter scored a hat trick, that was nice but it was only one game. The biggest worry is, right now is if Doughty, Weber, Keith,and Pietrangelo are not scoring, will any of the forwards step up and pick up the slack.  We have seen it before in international play where Canada will face a team with a hot goalie or suffocating defense that shuts them down and gives them trouble.  If Canada hopes to even get a chance to play for gold let alone win a gold they're gonna have to get production from their forwards. They will still need to play a strong team defense, get quality goal tending but most importantly they need their top and forwards to play like top end players and produce. 

And hey, let's bring all this back to around to yet another cliche. Your best players have to show up and it be your best players. Five of the top 10 scoring leaders in the NHL this year reside on team Canada.  You would like to think that if least one of them will be able to put the puck in the net when it matters.

All we can do now is watch and wait and cheer Go Canada Go!

Woman's Hockey - The Fight For Survival

Late last week the 4 day summit on the state of hockey on various levels and both the men's and woman's games drew to a close. The day 4 focus was where the game is more so internationally in the woman's game. We all know that there are really just 2 teams at the top of the mountain, Canada and the USA then there are the rest. Sure there are some countries that are making some great strides over the last few years to make their woman's programs a little more competitive but there is still a big gap. The big question continues to be how big is this gap and is there enough ground being made up on a year by year basis by the lesser countries to make woman's hockey a viable option in the Olympics.

It is great when you are Canadian and you know that the worst you are going to finish is 2nd but if it all goes by the waste side what is the point. When you get 2 good teams like Canada and the USA play you get a good game and they put on a good product. If the other countries can make a solid effort and keep growing then the game will make it on its own merit and this won't be an issue after the next Olympics.

The woman are looking to create a strong "pro league" and that can only help grow not only the sport but the overall awareness and maybe get more players involved at younger ages if they know that there is actually something to aspire to and shoot for. I look at a woman's North American Pro League like that of junior hockey. When we see players on the national team, either on the USA or Canada we can choose our favorites but after that tournament they are gone from our sports viewing. if they went back to club teams then you can follow them better and become fans. It is similar to professional wrestling, in the past there were all these regional promotions and splinter cells all around. Then they were all eventually absorbed into bigger more national entities. then you get a WCW/WWE type production which is big. Bigger names, more recognisable players and teams and a stronger more structured set up (provided that it is done correctly). I think that there would be a market for that and with the right amount of team in the right markets it could not grow the game and thrive but help good players from other countries have a chance to not only play with better players but also and maybe more importantly practice with better players and coaches.

I like the men's game for the tough and skilled play, but I also like the woman's game with little or no hitting because it make the game faster and more free flowing. the less contact the less obstruction and the faster the pace. The skill can still be there and tempers can still get high but it doesn't happen as often or needlessly. If there are 2 things that I just can't stand is every time there is a whistle that all the players have to skate into a pile and start face-washing each other and the other is every time a player gets hit there has to be a fight. Even if the hit is clean players seem to think that everything needs to looked at as being predatory and "If you are a good teammate you'll stick up for your guy". What a load of crap...clean is clean, just play the game. It is a collision game, collisions will happen.

Both men's and woman's games have pros and cons but one thing they have in common is they both deserve to stay as Olympic Sports.