by Stephen Leggett

Like all good Canadian boys, I spend most of my Christmas Holiday watching the World Junior Hockey Championships. It is the right of the season for all Canadians to pretend that we are junior hockey experts.

Full with ideas on who should be playing the power play and who should be starting in goal. It is a right we as Canadians earn growing up in musty hockey rinks dreaming of the day we could also put on the Canadian jersey.

Saturday Canada won its 4th straight gold medal and once again showed the world that Canada is the true Superpower in the sport. The boys did the country proud by bringing the gold metal back to the country that cares more about this tournament than any other country.

Or, more to the point, The only country who cares.

Thousands of Canadians filled the stands for all of Canada’s games. All the other games seemed to have sparse crowds that were made up of family members and Canadians that were forced to buy early games in their ticket packages. 3,500 Canadians were in the crowd for most of Team Canada’s games.

Clearly impressive, but comparing it to the other teams audiences brings home the point that we put a premium on a tournament that no other hockey playing nation even follows.

You don’t have to go farther than the rink to see that we are the only ones watching.

Pizza Pizza, The Keg, Desjardins, Scotiabank, Encana, Booster Juice, Husky Gas, Nike Hockey, Made in Japan, Red Tag Holidays. These are ads I would expect in any Canadian rink, but this tournament was in the Czech Republic.

Now we don’t have to apologize for the fact we care about a tournament the rest of the world is uninterested in. Canadians still seem to love the Grey Cup.

And there is no need to consider the players as anything other than what they are – Champions.

But be sure to realize that no other country puts the emphasis on this tournament the way Canada does. And success at this level doesn’t usually mean success at the professional level. Many of the stars of this gold medal team will never be NHL stars.

But put me in line as a Canadian that is proud of the way the boys represented our country in something that we consider ours.

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