Hey, Hockey Canada: Stop making teenagers into superstars
It begins long before kids get to the Program of Excellence, but maybe it would be a good idea for all of us, including yours truly, to stop putting these kids on pedestals
In its first game of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup under-18 tournament on Sunday, Canada defeated Switzerland 14-0. There’s nothing terribly earth-shattering about that for anyone who has watched Canadian teenagers repeatedly take their counterparts from lower-tier European countries out to the woodshed in these events. But if you had been following the game on Hockey Canada’s social media feed, you’d have been led to believe it possessed all the drama of the Summit Series 50 years later.
Whoever runs Hockey Canada’s Twitter feed was very, very busy on Sunday. Of the 14 goals Canada scored, 10 of them were announced with a gleeful tweet to its 431,000 followers accompanied by a video or graphic, including seven of the eight first-period goals Canada scored. (One of the first-period goals garnered two tweets, however.) The more Canada scored, the more Hockey Canada tweeted. All told, including the pre-game preview and post-game wrap, Hockey Canada sent a total of 23 tweets for the game, including one that read: “GAME OVER! Open with a W.” For an opening-game win. Over Switzerland. In a non-International Ice Hockey Federation-sanctioned tournament in the middle of the summer that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean squat.
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