B'oh Canada

Hey, remember this?

Yeah, not so much this year.

I didn't figure out until the second-to-last game of the the round robin that I could watch Team Canada play on CNBC. Hooray! Then I found out that Pierre "MONSTER!" McGuire was doing colour commentary. Hooray? Then I watched them get shut out 2-0 by Finland. Were it not for the soothing bowl of oatmeal I had with me, I might have yelled at the TV. Then, another shutout to the hands of the Russians, and that's all she wrote. People across the country are livid (just listen to Bob McKenzie's February 22 podcast on TSN.ca^* -- he sounds not at all like the jolly McKenzie I remember) and shocked, but not me. I've seen it all before, so many times. I've seen stacked teams fail to score, I've seen lack of cohesion, I've seen Bertuzzi sucking. It's all so clear:

Canada played like the Canucks.

Then! Sami Salo and Mattias Ohlund go down with injuries in one day. What a great day for Canadian Canucks fans. The prospect of Bryan Allen as a number one defenceman just made an uncomfortable chill shoot through my loins, as it always does when I see someone getting sacked.

Oh well. At least there have been no Team USA-style disgraceful incidents, like, say, their trashing of hotel rooms in 1998. Or, say, Mike Modano whinging about the US hockey program. What a douche.

But! There is still hockey to be had. Without Canada in the tournament, I have to root for somebody. Of the remaining four teams, who gets my support? Will it be the grinding Finns? No, mostly because Ville Nieminen's facial expressions agitate me. The powerhouse Czechs? I am completely indifferent to them. The usurping Russians? Ordinarily I would, because it always feels less ignominous if your team is knocked out by the eventual champions, but no. This year, my support goes to:

Sweden.

I've always liked Sweden. Or, I should say, I always liked the idea of Sweden. When I was a kid, I really liked Ikea; it was like an amusement park for me, what with all of the furniture and the wallpaper swatches. What more could a kid want?! Also, I've always felt that the Scandinavians, and the Swedes in particular, are the elves of the human race. Who has anything bad to say about them? Only other Scandinavians. Finally, there's nothing about the Swedish hockey team that pisses me off. With the Finns, it's Ville Nieminen and Jarkko Ruutu (who, I've discovered, pisses me off when he's not wearing a Canucks jersey). With the Czechs, it's Jagr. With Russia, it's the fact that they put Pavel Bure in charge of their hockey program. But not with Sweden. Markus "I like making dangerous and offside passes to Bertuzzi" Naslund isn't there, and Peter Forsberg's resemblance to The Dude in "Gutterball" doesn't hurt either.

After the Swedes, I like the Finns versus the Russians, because it sets up an all-Scandinavian final. So, I officially throw The Internet's Foremost Dickolas Wang's support behind Sweden. Sing it with me!

Du gamla, du fria, du fjällhöga Nord,
du tysta, du glädjerika sköna!
Jag hälsar dig, vänaste land uppå jord,
din sol, din himmel, dina ängder gröna,
din sol, din himmel, dina ängder gröna.

Du tronar på minnen från fornstora dar,
då ärat ditt namn flög över jorden.
Jag vet, att du är och du blir vad du var.
Ja, jag vill leva, jag vill dö i Norden!
Ja, jag vill leva, jag vill dö i Norden!

Sweden: like the Russians, but with heart.

^* Earlier on today, I was reading some stories on TSN.ca, and I saw the word "feaTorinog". Let that be a lesson to us all: be careful when using the "Replace All" button.

Current Music: Swedish national anthem "Du gamla, du fria"