Canadians may have been disappointed that no Canadian hockey team played in the championship finals, but several of the winning Pittsburgh Penguin team members are Canadians. The Penguins beat the visiting San Jose Sharks 3-1 last night to win the coveted Stanley Cup.
It’s been a long drought
Hockey is Canada’s national sport, but no Canadian team has won the cup since 1993. In fact, all seven Canadian teams failed to qualify for the final round of playoffs this season. That hasn’t happened since the 1969-70 season.
Canadian Sidney Crosby provided some consolation by winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in post-season play. He hoisted the Stanley Cup after his team won it, and that means he could get to take show it off in his home town of Cole Harbour, in the eastern province of Nova Scotia.
A ‘visceral connection with hockey’
While Canadian audience numbers were down for the early play-offs, they picked up later on. Canadians, it seems, can’t resist their hockey. “I think almost every Canadian has a certain sort of visceral connection with hockey,” said Andrew Caddell, a hockey historian and author.
Caddell published a collection of short hockey stories called The Goal. “It allows people to identify with both the game, the sportsmanship that is part of the game and the northern connection with snow and ice and…those things that we like to think of ourselves as Canadian—fair play and teamwork and skill, and really hard, gritty, solid body checking and all the things that make up our character, I think.”
Listen
We froze, those were the days
In one of the stories Caddell describes how, like many kids who couldn’t skate so well, he played as a goal tender. He played outside in temperatures that sometimes dipped to -30 and since he didn’t move around too much tending his net, he got terribly cold. Like many Canadian children who skated outside in winter, he experienced excruciating pain after going indoors and his feet began to thaw.
More children now play indoors in heated hockey arenas.
Oops… ‘a big mistake’
In the past, hockey players did not earn much money, so Caddell’s dad was not keen for him to become a professional hockey player with the National Hockey League. The lad’s vision was not so good and his father was loath to buy expensive contact lenses so he could play in the big leagues.
When a friend went on to be a profession goal tender, albeit third-string, he made a lot of money and Caddell’s dad said “I guess we really made a big mistake.”
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.