A puck in the net destroys the country

David Sherman

Across the country, we’re loading the shotguns, tying the nooses. There’s nothing to live for anymore. The U.S. beat Canada in Olympic hockey by one goal in overtime and we might as well kill ourselves or let Trump have the country.

We’re facing a Great Replacement crisis, greater than that of the devout Christian white MAGA-heads on the other side of the Gordie Howe bridge.

It’s not that the Chinese will take the Stanley Cup and melt it into an EV, but when that vulcanized rubber disc hit the twine Sunday afternoon, shot by an American whose team had been outplayed most of the game, we lost our identity, our sense of purpose and, most importantly, we have been replaced as ice hockey’s super power.  

Yes, we have more snow than most, more lakes than anyone, a land mass second only to Russia and we’re known as nice people. Losers, but nice. Except on the hockey rink, where nice is a vice. We are, in fact, uncaged animals on skates and proud of it. We were the best at hockey. Nothing but gold would do. Silver equals humiliation. Prompts suicidal ideation.

As the Olympics are demonstrating, other countries, big and small, have threatened our glacial pride, our cultural essence, our hockey supremacy. We are being replaced, slowly but inevitably, by nations large – the U.S. – and small – Finland, Czechia and who knows?

First, it was our embarrassing women, losing yet again to the U.S., this time just after four minutes in overtime. Three hundred and sixty seconds was the difference between the glitter of gold and humiliation. A lifetime of perseverance and celebrity reduced to a silver footnote, tears and jeers. But what can you expect of women hockey players? They should’ve been baking and baby making.

It was the men that killed their country’s pride, our raison d’être, in less than two minutes of overtime.

Yes, it was a great game. Yes, the good guys played great. But, in hockey, if you don’t win, you’re a loser.

The U.S. can have their fleet of aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles and Donald Trump and his name plastered on every public structure in the country, including public washrooms, to remind you what he’s full of. Finland has its 3 million-plus public saunas. Czechia boasts the highest per capita consumption of beer in Europe.

But Canada has always been more than “quelques arpents de neiges.” What did Voltaire know about hockey? He wrote essays against intolerance and injustice and superstition, which shows how out of touch he was.

Engraved in Canadian history, in our souls, along with a two-four of Molson’s, is hockey. Along with the beer, we have ice in our veins, perhaps the reasons we are so nice. We’re too cold to get hot under the collar.

We have always been the best at the world’s fastest, most violent game, and proud of it. And we’re so nice about it, trying to dismember your opponent is an accepted and applauded part of the game. Even our penalties are “nice.”

Attempting to remove an opponent’s spleen with a blunt object, usually using the end of your stick, is simply spearing, an ode to the country’s first nations. The revenge is the perpetrator must spend two minutes sitting alone in a box, not dissimilar to sitting in a corner when you were a kid at school for pulling Betty-Anne’s braids.

This is far less serious than a five-minute roughing penalty assessed for attempted decapitation. When decapitation is successful you aren’t allowed to play anymore, known as a game misconduct, similar to going to the principal’s office when the principal is on vacation.

Being a Canadian sport, this attempted murder will sometimes push the league to assess a fine of a few thousand dollars. To a player making $3-$17 million a year, this is as painful as being forced to buy your opponent a Big Mac. Or having to eat one. But this is hockey, what used to be our game, a reflection of who we are as a people and we cannot tolerate anyone else being better at it than us. And that one American goal has destroyed us, an athletic equivalent to the carnage of Vimy Ridge or the Battle of Britain.

Lest we forget, we taught the world to accept organ removal without anesthetic, then shed not a tear and slide back on the ice and score. We are expert at not only speed-sewing stitches on ripped body parts and dental surgery on the bench – the miracle of Lidocaine -- but also scraping blood and human tissue off the ice during beer commercials.

This is a mystery to soccer or “foot” fans and players. Being touched by an opponent on soft grass causes pros to collapse and writhe as if they’re in the throes of a heart attack or brain embolism. Emergency medical crews are immediately summoned to administer blood transfusions, intravenous painkillers and oxygen. This is all in the hope the referee will whip a yellow card out of his pocket and wave it in the air, signifying a medivac helicopter is not required.

Now, the Great Replacement means the Stanley Cup will be named the Trump Trophy, his face engraved at centre ice of every rink in the National Hockey League. The tides of the world’s oceans will whimper rather than roar in. We will have to give up our tourtières, poutine, steamed hot dogs and drink café Americano, also known as dishwater, as our culture was swept away as easily as Canadian curlers swept away Great Britain.

But curling is not hockey. Though played on ice, it does not involve high-speed dismemberment.

To salvage our souls and sleep at night, we’ll have to close our borders to anyone who hadn’t learned to skate by the age of three. Schools must stop wasting time on anything but geometry and math to learn to block shots and keep score. After 20 minutes of that, a school day should include three hours of skating, three hours of hockey and three hours of weight training, broken up by two daily injections of steroids.

Electro-shock therapy to learn pain resistance is also recommended but can be replaced by students slamming each other’s shins with baseball bats twice a week until they learn to stop crying and play fractured. Be like Sid.

In pro hockey, especially Olympic “best on best,” there is no such thing as a good sport, grace in victory and defeat or respect for your opponent. As said by one American player, who plays for Ottawa when he’s not at the Olympics, “I hate Canada.”  Except when he’s cashing his Ottawa Senators’ pay cheques.

Yes, Canada lost and is lost, replaced by the forces of darkness. But it was a hell of a game. And the sun will rise tomorrow.