Human Kinetics professor Dr. Craig Greenham explains why some fans may feel disappointed in silver (CANVA STOCK/University of Windsor; C. THERASANATHAN/University of Windsor)
By Kate Hargreaves
With the Milano-Cortina Winter Games officially wrapped and Canadian athletes beginning to arrive home, the support for Team Canada continues at airports across the country.
Winning 21 medals total — five gold, seven silver and nine bronze, Team Canada took home medals across seven different sports.
Still, after losses to the United States in both the women’s and men’s hockey finals, some Canadian sports fans found themselves feeling disappointed as the Olympics drew to a close on Sunday.
Dr. Craig Greenham, a professor of sport management and leadership in the Faculty of Human Kinetics, explains that the far from celebratory mood — at least when it comes to hockey — is linked to both longstanding rivalry and more recent geopolitical tensions.
“The rivalry is intense,” he says. “There was a time when the Soviet Union was our big hockey rival. That’s changed, and I think the Canada-USA women’s rivalry certainly helped usher in this era. Would losing to Finland in the finals seem different? Yes.”
Greenham explains that hockey’s deep connection to Canadian identity further raised the stakes of both Canada-USA finals, especially given threats to recent Canadian sovereignty from the United States.
“We don’t link other sports to Canadian identity the way we do with hockey,” he says.
“There seems more at stake with our global dominance in hockey. It’s the sport we’re constantly plugged into, not one we parachute into once every four years with other Olympic sports. Hockey is central for a lot of Canadians, constantly.”
With the Canadian women’s team missing out on gold in overtime against the US, followed by the same outcome for the men a few days later, Greenham says that Canadian hockey fans found themselves struggling to celebrate double silver medals.
“Only gold matters, and I don’t mean that in a hostile way,” he explains.
“I don’t think anyone in the country thinks of what happened in either game as winning silver. Canada lost gold, and honestly gold is what the Olympics value. The nation that wins the most gold medals wins the Olympics.”
While Greenham doesn’t think that Canadians will turn against players and coaches, he says that disappointment is normal and everyone will handle it differently.
For his part, he did not watch the medal presentations or post-game celebrations.
“I wasn’t interested in watching the Americans skate around the rink waving their flag,” he says. “I turned it off and tried to do other things to get my mind off it.”
For others, working through the disappointment might mean relitigating the details of both games.
“For some, it will be second-guessing things our players, coaches or management team did,” Greenham says.
“For others, it’ll be criticizing officials or the tournament format, particularly the 3-on-3 overtime format. That’s cathartic for some folks. Rehashing matters.”
Greenham, however, says he needs distance.
“Others won’t want that. They’ll gravitate to the media cycle and add weight to their emotional load,” he says. “I’d rather be light. Turn the page.”
“There’s an old expression: least said, soonest mended. It doesn’t work in every situation, no adage does, but I think it applies here.”