Hockey trumps politics, war, in Canada

Yay, Canada won world junior gold for the fifth straight year on January 5th. A record four million people watched the game. Hell, even Prime Minister Harper took time off to watch our Canadian boys stomp those corner-shy Swedes. Grit, speed, goaltending - team Canada had it all. John Tavares, Jordan Eberle... who will ever forget those names, those dazzling goals, the strength of character and dogged tenacity of young men who will likely be millionaires before they're able to legally buy booze in the States.

A sixth straight championship isn't out of the question for next year. But there are some stumbling blocks in the way of another sweet hockey victory for Canada.

There's this economic crisis that everyone keeps talking about. I guess it's important, but when there's hockey on I just can't concentrate on that crap. I mean, who cares if manufacturing ceases to exist in Canada or a couple thousand loggers in BC and Northern Ontario have to swallow their pride and get in line for a government handout? We'll still be able to get composite hockey sticks and flat screen televisions, right? And I'm sure a couple hundred unemployables could be given jobs polishing jocks for next year's junior team.

Really, it's people's own fault for being unskilled labourers. All those laid-off factory and forestry workers should take a lesson from demi-gods like John Tavares, and work on their skills, like the all important toe-drag. And let's hope they don't forget to drink Gatorade. Electrolytes become very important when a person is depressed and needs that extra boost to make it to the food bank.

There's a federal budget coming out in late January that could affect Canada's hockey development strategy and junior teams in the future. I, for one, can't believe the sports budget will get chopped in the face of declining government revenue and the need for increased spending on just about everything not related to a sport only a small percentage of Canadians can afford to play.

But I'm sure all good Canadians at least watch hockey obsessively. We're told hockey is the glue that holds the country together at least twice a day. Elite level hockey wouldn't exist without glitzy television promotion and gobs of advertising revenue pushing a sport into national prominence. Sadly, those ad dollars are hard to come by these days, so maybe the government will increase funding to hockey to balance the costs of putting together champion amateur teams whose games are televised on a cable network owned by a media conglomerate. Let's hope so.

Watching the World Juniors was also a nice break from all this death and senseless violence happening outside the rink, in countries so poor they don't even have enough water to make ice to skate on. Somalia, Sudan, bah, those countries probably haven't even heard of hockey, if you can imagine.

What about Gaza? Wasn't he a goalie with Kazakhstan? I heard something about him getting shelled by the IDF. I was about to look that up, because Pierre McGuire didn't mention anything about anyone named Gaza during the tournament. But then I got distracted by reports that Tavares might be traded to the London Knights and I forgot the entire thing.

Anyone heard from this Gaza lately? He's probably not a first round pick, so it's not like he rates any prime time coverage.

Yes, it's been a glorious start to the New Year. And I fully expect more of the same in the months to come.

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