The Canadian women's hockey team annihilated the Slovack team last weekend and ever since there's been a lot of hand wringing about how wrong it is to win like that.
Well how should we win? By a one or two goal lead followed by a a tap on the back to their opponents and the acknowledgement that they played well?
But they didn't play well and the Canadian women don't want to pull back on a crucial training game in the short Olympic tournament, they want to play their best at all times and woe to their opponents if they're not up to it.
In the 1936 Olympic games the Canadian hockey team, which had won in 1920 (exhibition sport at the Summer Games), 1924, 1928 and 1932 had to face rule changes mid-tournanment. The IOC was determined to thwart another Canadian victory at the Olympics and allowed Canadian men serving in the British Army to join the British hockey team, they then forced onerous amateur qualifying standards on the Canadian team that they completely ignored for the European teams. It was actually Great Britain that won the Olympic gold medal in hockey in 1936 and it took until 1952 for the Trail Smoke Eaters (back then existing teams were selected to represent Canada at the tournament) to bring hockey Gold back to the motherland and then it took another 50 years for a Canadian team to repeat the feat, since the IOC refused to block so-called amateur European players, who were in fact often much better paid than NHL stars of the day.
So when the women beat Slovakia 18-0 I say good for them, and although the tournament will get harder and there are those out there who say were are compiling a Karmic debt that will have to be paid, the reality is it is Canada that is now reaping its Karmic pay back - and it's a bitch.
