Commentary
In l998, the year Canada’s men didn’t medal in hockey during the winter Olympics, many reporters came out against Mr. Don Cherry—blaming his vision of the game for the failure of our players.
There were many reasons why we lost that year, but I guarantee Mr. Cherry wasn’t one of them. In some ways it was the most predictable and spineless of reactions from our tribe of scribes, most of whom had scoffed in one way or another at Canadian hockey for years. Many secretly rejoiced when other teams won, especially the Swedes, and most believed that changing the game to European standards (whatever they were) would make hockey more acceptable to people who didn’t know the game, and who had no real interest in ever knowing it….