I had a typical Canadian evening last night. Played beer league hockey, watched a buddy get taken out of the rink in an ambulance, and went to sleep in full confidence that the Canadian women’s team 2-1 lead would be enough to finish off the Americans.
Turns out some things happened while I was sleeping.
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First off, obviously, the Americans finally won a gold medal game, defeating Canada 3-2 in the dreaded shootout. Honestly, the US desperately needs any morale boost they can get right now and if defeating the world’s hockey superpower puts a smile on the face of just one American, then Canada was happy to help save the soul of a nation.
Now the game itself was pretty, pretty good! The VICE Sports editor just told me “It was one of the greatest games of all time” and that’s good enough for me, a lazy reporter.
But while I’ll leave analyzing and mythologizing the game itself to writers like Bruce Arthur, I do want to talk about some of the subplots.
SUBPLOT A: Scott Moir Hogs the Spotlight
Enter Scott Moir, ice dancer and scene stealer.
Obviously, Moir is now the most famous Canadian not named Aubrey Graham, and We Are All Scott Moir Drunkenly Yelling at the Ref to Open Their Eyes and How Much Did the Americans Pay You and Wake Up, That’s Not a Penalty, You’ve Got to be Fucking Kidding Me.
The man already ice banged his way into our hearts and two gold medals (shout out to Tessa Virtue obviously, but she didn’t drunkenly scream at the refs last night) and you’d think that would be enough but no, he had to capture the quintessential soul of the Canadian rink rat.
It was almost a great enough performance from Moir (I’ll give it a 204.4, because that seems like a good ice dancing score) to get our little nation to ignore that the US basically dominated every aspect of play last night and maybe that one thing that we are better at than everyone else is actually not that true. (And thank god the NHL shot themselves in the dick and didn’t send good hockey players to Pyeongchang because the US men’s team would have been terrifying. But also, both Kessel siblings winning gold medals would have been a nice story, so I’m conflicted.)
So, end subplot A.
SUBPLOT B: Leslie Jones Calls Pierre McGuire an ‘Asshole’
If you are, like myself, a fan of an American hockey club you have probably been forced to watch a few games on NBC and thus, listen to Pierre McGuire.
Hockey fans know McGuire for three main reasons, his love of the word “monster,” ruining moments, and his incredible weakness for talking about professional hockey players’ junior or college careers. (By god, if I have to hear another tale about Minnesota high school hockey or who was roommates with who at Boston College…)
Now enter Leslie Jones, beloved funny person and yeller at the Olympics.
Jones was watching McGuire interview Gigi Marvin during the second intermission and asked about Canada’s win at the Sochi Olympics and before Marvin could even get off a simple “We just got to play our game, keep it simple, get pucks to the net” Jones WENT OFF.
“Fuck, asshole! Why the fuck would you ask her right now in the middle the fucking game she’s playing,” she said. “Get your ass the fuck away from the hockey players!”
Leslie Jones, for telling it like it is, you were last night’s McGuire’s Monster of the game.
Subplot 3: Silver Medals are for Losers
And finally, we have the most serious subplot of the game in which Canadian hockey player Jocelyne Larocque was forced by officials to wear a crappy piece of jewelry.
So, here’s what happened. Larocque basically pulled a modified version of the Lias Andersson Toss—the infamous move by the future New York Ranger second-line centre in which he tossed his silver medal into the crowd after losing to Canada at the World Juniors earlier this year.
”There was one guy in the stands who wanted it more than me so I decided to give it to him and I think he deserved it,” he said at the time. (Swedish hockey players are the most quotable.)
Larocque, didn’t wear her medal for a good 30 minutes after the game despite some gloating American fans yelling “Put your medal on!,” according to the Globe and Mail.
Eventually, some official from the International Ice Hockey Federation told her there was “legal” reasons she had to put the medal on (note: this seems dubious) and she complied.
“We were going for gold,” she said when asked why she didn’t want to wear it.
Now, obviously, we’ve all been taught that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses it’s how you play the game but I’m just going to end this piece with a paraphrased quote from American philosopher Charlie Brown.
“Winning isn’t everything but losing isn’t anything.”
Congrats to the American team and see you again in four years!
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