What he said:

 

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Sports/1169628.html

Give our hockey champs a break

 

CHRIS COCHRANE

Sat. Feb 27 - 4:53 AM

 

 

ANY ATHLETE who has played on a championship team can look forward, and deservedly so, to the post-game celebration with teammates.

 

It’s a special time when players who have battled through so much adversity — and there’s always adversity for a title team — can finally take some time to relax and bask in their accomplishments. The best celebrations are the impromptu ones that happen immediately after the victory. The athletes are exhausted and mentally drained but totally hyped on the big win.

 

These are the times athletes remember forever.

 

That’s why it’s so unbelievably ridiculous to hear the whining and apologizing going on over the Canadian women hockey team’s private, on-ice celebration after winning Olympic gold against the U.S. on Thursday night.

 

Some drank beer and champagne, some had a few puffs of a victory cigar. It was the same kind of celebrating that hundreds of sports teams across Canada do every year. The difference here, and to some this constitutes a major faux pas, is that the players were wearing Olympic medals.

 

The International Olympic Committee, a group whose own ethics have been called into question at times in the past, isn’t happy with the women’s behaviour.

 

"I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values," Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said about the celebration. "If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing, but not in public."

Hockey Canada was quick to toe the line.

 

"The members of Team Canada apologize if their on-ice celebrations, after fans had left the building, offended anyone," read a Hockey Canada statement. "In the excitement of the moment, the celebration left the confines of our dressing room and shouldn’t have.

 

"The team regrets that its gold medal celebration may have caused the IOC or COC (Canadian Olympic Committee) any embarrassment. Our players and team vow to uphold the values of the Olympics moving forward and view this situation as a learning experience."

 

In hindsight, maybe the women’s team should have kept the party in the dressing room where there were no photographers to snap shots of them having a celebratory drink, and out of respect for any American team members still in the arena. And maybe they should have made sure that the one player on the team who was under the legal drinking age (by a month) didn’t have a drink.

 

But is it really such a big deal? Isn’t it time to ease up on the political correctness that seems to hold sway over just about everything these days?

Don’t give me that line about them being role models for the youth of Canada. Part of the problem with this role-model thing is that we tend to build them up to a level where they can no longer be ordinary people with ordinary strengths and flaws.

 

These women had just capped off months — no, make that years — of intense preparation to win an Olympic medal. That arena is where they are role models, so judge them on their dedication, their talent and their sacrifice. Don’t judge them for celebrating after finally achieving their goal.

 

What if it had been the Canadian men’s team celebrating a gold medal on home ice? I bet no one would be gasping and holding up their ethics manuals if it had been Sidney Crosby taking a drag on a cigar or Chris Pronger throwing back a beer.

 

So I say ignore the petty bitching, ladies. You conducted yourselves like any other Canadian champions and you have nothing to apologize for.

I take it you won't be wanting any of their phone numbers, then?:rolleyes:

Good job Mark.