Why US rivalry makes ice hockey Canada’s most important Olympic event ever

Well, Sidney Crosby is a big part of it. He is Canada’s Harry Kane, apart from the fact that he’s been doing it for longer, plus he wins more of the female vote than Kane. He scored the winner in overtime against the US in the Vancouver Olympics final, but that was 16 years ago, so we may not see the 38-year-old again.

“Most of us know exactly where we were when Sid scored in 2010,” says Nick Suzuki, who is Crosby’s team-mate. He was ten at the time.

“I was crying when Sid scored,” says Mark Stone, another team-mate. He was 17 at the time.

“We’ve been dreaming of something like this since we were little boys,” Stone says, about replicating Crosby’s 2010 triumph. “It’s all for the crest on the front, for the Maple Leaf. Everyone in Canada’s rooting us on. It means everything to us.”

Different corners of the Olympic Games are defining to the national identity of different nations. The Dutch pride themselves on their speedskaters, the Swiss and Austrians on their skiers, the Norwegians are defined by cross-country skiing, the Finns believe their ski jumpers should go the furthest. For Canada, it is ice hockey, although these Games maybe more than ever, and that is another reason behind the Winnipeg quartet’s last-minute dash.

Geopolitics has already been at the forefront of this Olympics. This ice hockey competition now has the potential to be another focal point.

It was a year ago when Canada and the US last faced each other on the ice, in a Four Nations tournament, when it took nine seconds for three fights to break out. That was also when the Canadian supporters booed the US national anthem, and the American spectators responded in turn.

This was largely off the back of Donald Trump raising cross-border tariffs and suggesting that Canada should become America’s 51st state. It didn’t help that Bill Guerin, the manager of the US team, ramped up the tension by saying he would “love it” if Trump could come to the game and pep up a “room full of proud American players and coaches”.

So winning the Four Nations — which Canada did in the final against the US — seemed to be the most important thing in the world to Canada. Inevitably, the most important thing is now winning the Olympics, or rather not being beaten by the US.

And get this, on the eve of the Games, Matthew Tkachuk, one of the Americans who started those fights last year, said: “The Four Nations was a great little appetizer. The main course is up next. I think it’s going to be even more intense.”

Actually, that comment does not chime with much of what we were hearing from US athletes at the start of the Games. A number of them were keen to make it clear that Team USA was not necessarily Team MAGA.

“Just because I’m wearing the flag, doesn’t mean I’m representing everything that’s going on in the US,” said freestyle skier Hunter Hess. He was the one Trump then called a “loser”. Others followed Hess’s lead, among them Kelly Pannek, the Minnesota Frost ice hockey player, who said that she was representing the people who are fighting for what they believe in back home.

It hasn’t been hard to identify a similar humility in American fans. The stereotype is of rah-rah Yank cheerleaders, but here, watching their national ice hockey team, the tone is sometimes bordering apologetic.

“We have a complicated country,” for instance. Or this from three Americans who had come up on the train from Naples: “We’re hockey fans. What’s great about being here is everyone’s here to have fun. All the other bullshit, that’s left on the outside.”

Maybe this then takes the tension out of the US-Canada rivalry. The Olympics, however, tends to move the dial the other way, plus the US team still has Guerin at the helm cranking it up.

Yet, for Canadians, national identity still hangs on this event. “The most important Olympic event in history” was how one Canadian fan described it. Sober.

“Tension is high, so we stand up for ourselves,” the Winnipeg sisters explain. “Hockey is our game, so it’s important we’re here.”

They’re not worried about their women’s team; they’ve got their best player yet to return to the side. “We’ll get ’em [the US] later in the tournament,” the sisters add.

For the record, on the men’s opening night, Canada beat the Czechs 5-0 and then the US beat Latvia 5-1, although it was Canada who had the brighter start. They will not meet each other until the knockout rounds, but that may be epic.

We’ve long given up on thinking politics could be separate from sport, but here it is, festering away, and people are flying round the world to get their voices heard.

Whatever happened to Peng Shuai — and what did IOC enable?

In a week where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has established a firm and, some might say, staggering moral position, I’ve been wondering what came of some similarly uncomfortable ethical posturing from the Olympic chiefs four years ago.

To be precise: what happened to Peng Shuai? Four years ago, her name became an international cri de coeur: “Where is Peng Shuai?” Now it is more: who even remembers Peng Shuai? And, right now: was the IOC completely played over Peng Shuai?

Quick recap: Peng was one of China’s best-ever tennis players, and, significantly, she used to make a lot of noise on social media. On November 2, 2021, she posted on Weibo — the Chinese equivalent of X — a long and detailed account of an alleged sexual assault by a senior member of the Chinese government.

To speak out in this way was brave to say the least, an interpretation that seemed clearer when her post was quickly taken down, only to be followed by another, in which she claimed it was all a “huge misunderstanding”.

Thereafter, Peng seemingly disappeared; suddenly unseen around the tennis community or on social media. This led to the “Where is Peng Shuai?” movement. The Women’s Tennis Association took it so seriously (for a while at least), that when its demands for a full investigation were greeted by silence from the Chinese authorities, it removed a number of big events from China, including its big end-of-year finals.

The winter Olympics in Beijing the following February then became a focal point. There was pressure on the IOC to be her advocate. Surely Thomas Bach, the IOC president, could not host his big event in her country and turn a blind eye.

Then, during the Games, out of the blue, Peng appeared. Like royalty, she was shepherded very publicly, and apparently willingly, by Chinese officials, with Bach by her side, to front-row seats. She gave an interview to L’Équipe, repeating her position that there had been a misunderstanding. The PR statement — “nothing to see here” — could hardly have been more blatant.

It was tempting to feel at the time that the IOC was being completely mugged off by its Chinese hosts. Especially when the L’Équipe journalist said he had little faith in the interview because Peng came accompanied by Chinese officials, who interpreted for her. He openly wondered if he had been part of the “propaganda”.

Yet Bach gave reassurances to the contrary. He said that the meeting with Peng was “not just a one-off effort” and that “we will keep this contact up”. He was specific enough to say that Peng had been invited to Lausanne, where the IOC has its headquarters, and would probably come in the summer.

And you know what? That was the end of it. That was the last anyone saw of her. No appearances at tennis events, no social media engagement and no further engagement with the IOC, certainly no trip to Lausanne.

According to the IOC, it was her decision not to take up the offer. Yes, of course it was. And of course, if she was ever seen again, she’d be only too happy to confirm it.

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