Thought Experiment

I’ve always felt that here in Canada we get a little screwed in the way that the Winter Olympics are set up. Our primier sports are generally considered to be Curling and Hockey….in which we’re limited to one entry. By contrast, sports the eurpoean countries are best at like bobsled and skiing, they are allowed 3-5 entries into each event. Take the Germans, they’re great skiers and rack up tonnes of medals on the slopes because a) there are four skiing disciplines (Downhill, Slalom, Giant slalom, Super-G) and b) because they can have multiplie entries in each of those events.

I’ve always been a little cheesed that the best we can do is 2 medals in hockey, whereas other countries could get say 24 medals if their top event is skiing.

So, as a fun exercise, I wanted to see what Canada’s ‘Second’ Hockey team would look like, and whether it would be able to challenge for a medal. But first, I’ll block out who I think would be on my ‘Canada 1’:

Forwards
Crosby-Getzlaf-Iginla
Gagne- Lecavalier-Nash
Richards-Toews-Carter
Perry-E. Staal-Doan
Thornton

Defence
Pronger-Neidermayer
Bouwmeester-Weber
Regehr-Phaneuf
Greeen

Goalies
Broduer
Luongo
Ward

You can pick and choose around the edges of that roster, but in general that would leave something like this:

Forwards
Heatley-Marleau-St.Louis
Lucic-J.Staal-Morrow
Roy-Savard-Sharp
Smyth-Spezza-Cleary
McDonald

Defence
Boyle-Keith
Beauchamin-Burns
Doughty-Seabrook
Hamhuis

Goal
Fleury
Mason
Osgood

Again, mix-and-match how you see fit. But right there is a team that I think could very well win a medal. They’re probably not up to the task of handling the Russians, but could they knock off the Swedes/States/Czechs in Bronze Medal Game…I’d say so. We’re especially solid on D and in Net with that squad.

Guess I just consider it a rip that we get so shortchanged when it comes to the puck. Its even worse in Curling, where I think literally the Top 5 teams on both the Men’s and Women’s teams in the world are Canadian. The ‘Roar of the Rings’ is probably going to be tougher to win than the Olympics themselves.