Pointing the finger: A Canadian World Junior Championship tradition

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Eight years ago, the tar and feathers brigade was marching down Granville, ready to string up the object of their ire: Jason Botchford.

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The wrath was ubiquitous across the city; how dare the Vancouver Province hockey writer denigrate the pride of Langley — young Jake Virtanen — with a sensationalistic headline saddling the young hockey player with the blame for Canada’s woes at the World Junior Hockey tournament.

“People were coming for The Province like Joe and his War Boys in their post-apocalyptic rigs barrelling over sand dunes, and past Gas Town, in search of reclaiming their sister wives.

“The poor, unsuspecting person working the editorial phone desk over at The Province heard the fury, felt the fury. Callers, so angry, so many, threatened protests. It was pretty bad,” Botchford wrote in the aftermath.

The headline: Goat-Medal Winner. It detonated into Goat Gate, dominating media and social media, for days.

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One problem. Well, two, actually.

Firstly: That Province back page was my invention, not Botchford’s. He took the slings and arrows meant for my back. As was his style, he gleefully embraced the mantle of the controversy lightning rod, and began systematically eviscerating all his critics.

And two: the back page was bang on, and completely misconstrued. It was ‘Goat,’ as in ‘scapegoat,’ as everybody had rushed to blame Virtanen for Canada’s exit from the 2016 World Juniors. They lost 6-5 to Finland in the quarterfinals that year, with Virtanen’s three minor penalties and single point — his first of the tournament — going up on the media marquee in flashing lights. The city and country blamed Virtanen, then got mad when they thought Botchford was blaming Virtanen.

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Blame was the game then, and blame is the game now.

Any reasonable self-examination is replaced by ritualistic self-flagellism. The country is, once again, wracked in its ritualistic spasms and angst, whipping itself harder than Paul Bettany in The da Vinci Code. When Canada crashed out of the World Juniors for the second straight year on Thursday, the cat o’ nine tails started swinging.

Blame must be assigned.

In a way, it’s understandable. Hockey is the unifying, nationalistic banner that flies over the country. It’s the one thing we’re supposed to be better at than any other country. It’s our core identity.

And when that’s usurped, it’s painful. Like how the melanin-blessed felt when Eminem established himself as the best rapper of the 2000s. Or what Canadians will experience when the Vladimir Putin-loving Alexander Ovechkin eventually, inevitably, tops the Great One for career goals.

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The Maple Leaf wilts.

Gone are the days of the ’80s and ’90s when Canada’s WJC titles weren’t counted by the ones we won, but the ones we didn’t. Ten golds in 12 years between 1988-97. Or during the latter part of that streak, when Canada lost once and tied once in 34 golden-gilded games.

But 2023 and 2024 weren’t those Canadian teams. When Czechia punted the Canucks from the WJC in a second straight year on Thursday, it meant a second-straight fifth-place finish — the worst back-to-back performance by Canada since 1980.

Blame must be assigned. Heads must roll. A new ‘Goat’ must be found.

It could be coach Dave Cameron, whose head-scratching line combinations and tactical game plans led to just 13 goals scored, the most meagre output since 1998 and second-lowest since 1974. His roster choice, the concept being a balanced team that would run four lines deep and grind down the opposition with physicality and skill, was both unstable and ineffective.

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It could be the players as a whole, whose lack of discipline led to the most penalties in the tournament, along with an overall impression of frustration and confusion.

It could be those who chose the team the coach, leaving off some of the country’s more offensively gifted junior stars in favour of flexible utility type players.

Or the scouts who determined the shortlist to begin with. A very slight tip of the hat, however, to Scott Salmond, vice-president of hockey operations and national teams with Hockey Canada, who was seemingly the lone adult figure to take accountability for the junior team’s faceplant.

Is it the development pipeline? It was suggested that hockey academies are doing a disservice to the development of younger players, or perhaps it’s a junior system watered down by a bloated number of teams and leagues.

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It’s also long been admitted that other countries’ developmental pathways are churning out better products than they’d done in years past, not just narrowing the gap with Canada, but equalling it.

The fact is, it’s all of the above. All of it.

A badly coached team, a badly formulated roster, a player pathway fraught with pitfalls both financial and strategical shortcomings, and a game that no longer belongs to Canada alone.

If Botchford was still with us, he’d be raining dracarys in verbal and printed form. It’s time to stop pointing the finger to make Goat Medal winners and get back to producing the golden ones.

jadams@postmedia.com

JJ Adams on Bluesky

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