Sports Logic

By Wayne Coristine

Owning the Podium?

I've been watching an unhealthy amount of sports in the last week due to the Olympics and a few things stand out to me. First off, it's amazing how after a few short minutes of watching a less popular sport, we become experts. Watching moguls, I was screaming at my TV about how each run went and that was only day one. I now know what a double cork and double McTwist are, I'm adept at catching the difference between a clean triple lutz and one that wasn't just a little off and I'm fully aware that you need quiet arms in the ski jump because that's what the judges are looking for after all.

But there are other things at the Olympics that caught my eye, major issues that the Canadian team needs to address. First off, CTV's consortium of announcers need to learn that being critical of favoured Canadian athletes is allowed. If you're going to bill them as saviours, you have to hang the goat horns on them when they fail too. For example, in both long and short track speed skating, the Canadians would be hyped as having great shots at medals but as soon as they falter, our announcers make excuses like "this isn't her best event" or "he's using this as a warm up for the 1,500!"

Another issue is the feature on the high stakes of events like ski jumping, aerials, snowboard cross, downhill skiing, the half pipe and even figure skating. The part of the story that really irked me was when a sports psychologist for the Canadian athletes said she would never tell an athlete to take a major risk in competition if they have any doubt. Here's the issue about this. Canada's slogan at these games is "Own the Podium," which means they need to be taking risks to win. That's why the Americans take medals away in massive numbers, aside from their greater finances. The American athletes – with all that swagger and arrogance we as Canadians and the rest of the world despise – come to the highest pinnacle in sport with one goal in mind: win at all costs.

The reality is most these athletes get at most three sets of Olympic Games to shine and to not lay it all on the line is like asking for a participation ribbon. Canada isn't a great summer Olympics nation but with our abundance of winter and facilities to practice, there is no excuse for being happy with placing in the top ten when only the top three are remembered.

Concern on Ice

Well, it's already time for me to overanalyze the Canadian Olympic hockey team. After a nice little blowout of the lightweight Norway team, Canada – in the easiest draw in the tournament, laid a massive stinker in the second game against the Swiss. Yes, the Swiss. The team that thoroughly embarrassed Canada 2-0 in the 2006 Turin Games.

From the start of the very start of the tournament, I've had a few concerns with the Canadian team. Actually, I've had concerns with the team since it was named, but now that they have a couple games under their belt, my concerns are mounting. First off, the team's makeup. I'm all for chemistry on a hockey team. It's vital to any team's success and I understand that's why the coaches are playing regular teammates together on this team. However, the issue I have is very simple. Those guys should already have the chemistry needed to play well together in a tournament of the elite. It's the players from other NHL teams playing together that need to build chemistry in order to succeed when the games count. Which brings me to the fact that the Patrick- Marleau-Joe Thornton-Dany Heatley line and Ryan Getzlaf-Corey Perry line are playing too much so far? You could debate that the Sharks line (also known for their respective ghost impersonations in big games) are the best Canadian line so far. You could argue Getzlaf and Perry are playing well with Eric Staal and were just snake bitten against the Swiss. Doesn't matter, those guys are supposed to play well together.

However, people and the media want to dump on Sidney Crosby and the other seven players up front for not creating enough. Which gets my dander up in a big way? You see, Mike Babcock and Co. should be using the early rounds to put these guys out there a lot to see who works best with whom. And to build the chemistry between a Sidney Crosby and a Rick Nash or a Jerome Iginla. They should be getting Mike Richards and Jonathan Toews on the ice along with Brendan Morrow and even Patrice Bergeron. The only way those players are going to gel is by playing more than token minutes in a revolving door system on the bottom two lines.

Most importantly, Sidney Crosby is easily the best player on this team. He's their leading goal scorer and point getter coming into the tournament. He's a pressure player capable of carrying a team on his back and has the leadership chops at 22 that neither Joe Thornton nor Patrick Marleau have ever shown as they approach 30. Not using Crosby on the first unit power play is criminal and having him on the ice for what anything less than top three player minutes is bordering on irresponsible.

The other issue I have is burying a guy like Jerome Iginla, rather than using his experience as the only Team Canada forward with an Olympic gold medal. He also has the grit that is necessary when the going gets tough to score when it matters. I'm not saying that the Sharks and Ducks' players aren't carrying their weight; but we know they play well together, so Canada should have used the first two games to find out what they had with the players with less familiarity.

On the back end, I've never liked two of the picks: Dan Boyle and Scott Niedermayer. In addition to essentially bringing the same skill set, both are showing they are prone to giving the puck away, with Niedermayer being a sad shell of his former dominant self. His best tool – his speed – is failing him at this point in his career. His regular season is nothing short of abysmal as a big time minus player and yet he's playing top four minutes when his contribution is that of a sixth or seventh defenseman…

As for Boyle, he's what Steve Ludzik would call a Riverboat Gambler. He's about the same size as Niedermayer and has the same best attribute: speed. However, he doesn't think the game particularly well and is nothing short of mediocre defensively. Take into account that he's a plus four on a powerhouse Sharks team and you can see that he bleeds goals. It's a good thing Martin Brodeur is there to save his bacon.

That said the defence needs to play more of its young horses – both at even strength and on the power play. Coming into the Olympics, Duncan Keith is easily their best player back there and Drew Doughty is the likely number two. What they may lack in experience, they make up for in smarts and skill. Yet Keith is not getting any power play time despite being the highest scoring Team Canada defenseman coming in and Doughty got the bench for a giveaway while the veterans like Niedermayer and Boyle who commit garish turnovers are consistently sent over the boards.

Basically, Canada needs to be better from top to bottom to really put their stamp on this tournament. Efforts like the game against the Swiss are inexcusable and that's on the coaches every bit as much as it is on the players.

Non-Olympic Sports Talk

To borrow a nice little trick from Elliotte Friedman, one of the very best hockey journalists in the country, I'd like to switch gears to the Tiger Woods saga. This morning he finally faced the music with a 13 and a half minute statement about his affairs. First off, he went way farther than anyone predicted and hit on issues most thought he'd gloss over or make excuses for. Sure, he was rigid and it was obviously a carefully crafted statement, but he deserves a lot of credit for not taking the easy road like the vast majority of celebrity apologies.

We need to take a couple things into account with his press conference. Woods' words were sincere even if his delivery of them was awkward. I compare it to most school speeches and presentations you've ever delivered or witnessed. The speaker knows their stuff, but between nerves, pressure and even fear, it comes off as stiff and robotic. And that's for an audience of 30 without a video camera.

Woods' was under enormous pressure to come clean about the err of his ways and his audience was millions of people. The subject matter is also deeply personal and much more difficult than anything we presented in school, not to mention he has a hell of a lot more at stakes than getting a C-. As for being robotic…that's what Woods is. He was raised as a machine – as a golfer and as a person. It's what makes him so good at what he does, but it's also a big part of his demise.

The pressure of being a young phenom and billed by his own father as "being more important than Gandhi" at a young age is ridiculous. Woods was never allowed to have a normal life and like any sheltered kid from acting out at some point. Unfortunately, for Woods, he acted out as a married man and he got burned by it. He also got what he deserves for getting caught in his own mess.

But to go back to his statement today, I think Tiger Woods did what he had to do, even if he was about three months late to the party. He took responsibility and blame, he didn't make excuses and he explained how he's going to continue his rehabilitation. He's no longer seen as a perfect citizen and role model as he was before, which is a good thing; if we're going to look up to people, we should look up to those that can admit mistakes, take responsibility and show their warts rather than a carefully manufactured image.