Canada Loses To Germany In Olympic Semis

I was not able to watch Canada's 4-3 loss to Germany in today's Olympic semi-final as I was at work, so I can't comment this particular game much. It seems the coach Willie Desjardins is taking a lot of heat, and to some degree the players for not rising to the occasion against Germany, of all nations

I don't think the Canadian men's Olympic performance will result in a parliamentary summit. After all, Canada's top 500 or so players were unavailable to them. True, all nations had no access to NHLers. But no other nation has to go 500 players deep to build a team.

The sad thing is I don't think Canadians ever got to know this team of ultimate underdogs. The time zones largely played a role in that, as games were hard to catch. But had Canada advanced to the gold medal game against the heavily favored Russians, maybe this Canadian team would have finally enjoyed the love of the nation in the hours preceding the gold medal game.

There are no shortage of compelling stories among the roster and staff of discarded Canadians on the team. We've seen some good features on several platforms. But to many Canadians these guys remain as anonymous now as they were when the Games started.

Maybe that's because Canadians never expected anything from them. Get into that gold medal final and suddenly Canada would have rallied around them. That was their only chance to ever be somebody, even if only for a few hours and against all hope.

Let's give Germany some credit here. They beat the Swedes, who I felt were the one team who could beat Russia thanks to their deeper defense. They are going to the gold medal game here because they deserve it.

Russia will be such a heavy favorite. Canadians will get a chance to cheer on the underdogs against the mighty Russians. Only the underdogs are German, not Canadians.