Players like Connor McDavid, shown above, will not have to worry about this process anytime soon. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
By David Malinowski (@dmmm14)
It’s the time of year where snowflakes are lackadaisically falling down to Earth outside, gathering closely together in the corners of the window, while the steamy smell of hot chocolate and marshmallows fills the inside of a house, a family happily together for the holidays. It’s supposed to be the happiest time of year. The word “happy” has taken on a particular vagueness to it as time has moved forward. Last night, several players were sent home to spend some time with their families this holiday season, but there isn’t any misconstruction of this phrase. Hockey Canada has a major problem that needs to be fixed.
Last night, Team Canada made its four final cuts after an exhibition game to finalize its roster down to 22 players. Going through the minds of the young players is just going to leave a viewer heartbroken, yet that’s exactly what happens every time a roster decision is made, as these four very players are interviewed right after they’ve been given the bad news.
Michael Dal Colle, among others, was told that he was going to be let go from the Canadian junior squad. In a move that was at a minimum controversial with regards to player personnel, Hockey Canada makes a player, who has just had one of his dreams crushed in a big way, talk to a national audience about “what happened.” That’s disgraceful.
The governing body of Canadian Hockey has to realize something. These aren’t professionals competing for a spot on an Olympic roster. For all intents and purposes, these are teenagers. Their prefrontal cortexes aren’t fully developed, they have acne plastered onto their faces, they still think reenacting scenes from Jackass are a wonderful idea, and that the best years of their lives can last forever. In other words, these teenage hockey players would rather stay slightly disconnected from reality if only for a while longer, yet they haven’t been given the opportunity to do that.
From every negative event in life there’s always a positive
— Michael Dal Colle (@MDalColle71) December 20, 2014
As pointed out by several sources, including Yahoo!’s Buzzing the Net, Canada used to make early morning cuts only to have players, who probably didn’t sleep well the night before anyway, wake up to a media barrage asking what happened. That didn’t work, but neither did what happened yesterday.
To play in front of your country on its own soil after coming out of the woodwork of random Canadian towns and cities is quite the storybook. Imagine the feeling of being the next in line for a major promotion at your company. Your family, whom you have to support, is counting on the extra money. Your friends are waiting for you at a local bar to celebrate. Your coworkers, who realize how hard you’ve worked, have been giving you congratulatory smiles and handshakes on your walk to the boss’ office, since you’re the only man or woman for the job. You sit down in the office as the boss closes the doors and delivers the words, “I’ve chosen someone else.” The walk back to your desk isn’t so easy after that, is it?
In a mix of emotions that can only be described as a mixture of anguish, fear, and sadness, you now have to deliver one thousand explanations for something that is just plain incomprehensible. Imagine being Michael Dal Colle last night. Imagine being Rourke Chartier, Jason Dickinson, or Haydn Fleury. They’re dejected and utterly inconsolable, no matter how strong they may be acting on the outside. The feeling of “not being good enough” just hurts, and it’s a part of life, but don’t broadcast their names to the world one by one; nobody wants to see that.
Canada is stuck in this purgatory of inviting an overly short roster to camp versus having to make too many cuts and damage too many players’ hearts. A participation trophy is not necessary, but the greater entity of Hockey Canada has to realize that it is dealing with kids who have given up virtually every other opportunity in life in order to focus on hockey. Perhaps there is a different way: invite three roster’s worth of players to camp, and cut them in groups. Invite all 35,675,834 who call the country home for all I care, but don’t make them talk to anyone immediately following their rejections. Don’t publicize their names as if you’re announcing the two finalists on American Idol.
Hockey Canada, your one task in life, your one, simple, task, is to put on a platform of hockey excellence and broadcast to the world why the country that created the sport is the best at it. You have produced generational talent over the years, and you have won every type of achievement there is to garner. The IIHF World Junior Championship isn’t about prowess on the ice, rather stories. You do not have to humiliate your players and broadcast their hard-knocks to the world directly thereafter; you don’t capitalize on their setbacks. Let the players learn from what went wrong, put on your show, and move forward. I don’t want to see a heartbroken player being grilled by the National Post, The Globe & Mail, every local Sun, nor CBC right after his dreams have been crushed.
Quit toying around with emotions, Hockey Canada. For everyone’s sake, find a system that works and stick to it.
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