Is Canada even good at hockey anymore?

If you’ve been following Olympic hockey even passively for the past dozen years or so, you know that when the Olympics roll around, the gold medal is seemingly Canada’s to lose.

Well after a shootout loss the USA women in the gold medal game on Wednesday night, hockey fans woke up this morning to the stunning news that the Canadian men had fallen in the semifinal round to Germany, 4-3, meaning Canada will go without an Olympic gold medal in hockey for the first time since 1998.

It begs the question, is Canada even good at hockey anymore?

Let’s take a look at the stats, the Canadian women have gone four whole years without winning a gold medal, while the USA women have gone just two days without winning a gold medal, facts are facts folks, and that is a long time to go without taking home the top prize in women’s hockey. I’m not hockey expert, but I have a feeling it will be at least eight years before Canada even contends for another Olympic gold. That is quite a drought.

And the same now goes for the men after this morning’s stunning (but really not-so-stunning defeat), it’s been four years since they last took home the gold, and it will also be another four years before they get another shot, if the country even still plays the sport after this debacle of an Olympics. Think about this: Germany will have won a better medal in hockey than Canada for the next four years. The only way that’s acceptable is if Canada hides in shame and somehow convinces the IOC to change the name of the sport to soccer. SAD!

And don’t even get me started on Canadian teams in domestic play.

The Stanley Cup, arguably a bigger prize than an Olympic gold medal, hasn’t been won by a team in Canada since 1993. That’s 25 years and 24 seasons of hockey with the country who claims they invented the sport and made it great not winning it. Canada’s game? Please.

In fact, dropping down to the AHL, the last time Canada won a title in that, 2007 when the now-folded Hamilton Bulldogs took home the Calder Cup. And they’ve NEVER won a title in the ECHL. Woof, this country, are they even playing the same game as the rest of the world? Even in the long-since folded IHL, you have to go back to 1950 and the Chatham Maroons for the last time they took home the Turner Cup.

So while Canada may have put on a good show at the Olympics and lucked into a few gold medals, this year the cracks finally blew open and the rest of the world saw what was obvious for year: Canada really isn’t that good a hockey anymore. You have to wonder what this will do the country’s population, economy, and just overall national happiness.

Oh and if that isn’t bad enough they also didn’t win gold in men’s curling, the one sport that they should probably never lose at.

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