World Juniors: Hockey Canada backs hiring Dave Cameron as coach

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As the head coach of a team that fell dramatically short of expectations, Dave Cameron is an easy target.

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He’s not on social media, but he doesn’t have to be to know that shots are being fired at him from all different directions after Canada’s elimination from the world junior hockey championship on Thursday — the first time since the current format was incorporated in 1996 that Canada has failed to play a medal game in consecutive years.

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Cameron was aware of the pressures when he accepted the job, a position that, at 66, he didn’t need to complete an already impressive résumé.

But he was also of the mind that, when your country calls, you pick up the phone. And, in this case, he believed it was his duty as a Canadian to respond with a yes.

To make him the scapegoat for the disappointing elimination at the hands of the Czechia isn’t exactly fair, either.

Cameron didn’t assemble the roster, and he’s not at fault for the players on the team taking too many penalties and failing to convert too many scoring chances.

Could he have made in-game adjustments that might have helped? Probably, and thousands of far less-qualified people are eager to point them out from the anonymity of their laptops.

The “keyboard warriors” Radek Bonk referred to when talking about the fans who viciously attacked his son, Oliver, for a fluke bounce off his stick that defeated Canada 12 months ago are out in full force again this year, only this time their sites are set on the guy behind the bench.

But, for the most part, Cameron worked with what he had and coached the way he knew how, the manner of which has produced much success over his long career.

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Either way, Hockey Canada’s brass mostly danced around questions about Cameron’s performance at Friday’s availability — a 22-minute session that did not include Cameron — until Scott Salmond, senior vice-president of high performance and hockey operations, assumed all accountability.

“This tournament means a lot to Canadians,” he said. “As I said to our players before, there’s a lot of opinions, there’s a lot of things that are written, there’s a lot of things are said, but that’s only because people care. That’s the job that we all take. Why do I think people should believe in Hockey Canada and our process? I think that over the long haul, our program has proven to be successful. I think we’ve proven to do things the right way with the right people, and so that’s not going to change. I don’t think that the results are always indicative of the people or the process. Sometimes you win at sport and sometimes you lose. In our country, you’ve got to win way more often than you lose, and that’s what we sign up for.

“If someone asks, who do you blame? You can blame me. If you think it’s scouting, I hire the scouts. If you think it’s coaching, I hire the coach. That’s the job that you have, and that’s what you know this country is about. We want to win, and nobody wants to win more than the players and the people in that room, nobody. So they’re not political decisions. They’re not decisions based on emotion. They’re calculated decisions based on winning. And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

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“In my opinion, we wanted an experienced coach in Dave. Dave has coached in the National Hockey League. Dave’s coached at eight Hockey Canada events and had a lot of success, he’s been part of three world champions. We just really felt Dave was the right person for this.

“I’ve known Dave Cameron for a long time. He is a character man, and so that’s number one. The job Dave signed up for is a difficult one. I thought that, from day one of the camp, we had an identity, of how we wanted to play. I think Dave held firm to that identity. I think that he pushed players in a way that Dave can, in a fair way, and challenged players. And, in the end, Dave doesn’t score goals. It’s his job to put players in positions to do that. And I thought he did that.”

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