But is losing the Olympic hockey semi-final game to Canada really that big a deal?
Ask yourself, how much time leading up to the Olympics did you devote to focusing on just U.S. Hockey?
Let me make another thing perfectly clear: I love the NHL players participating in the Olympics every four years. But in the interim, does anyone really think about Olympic hockey?
Think about it. Take hockey out of the equation even. If you're reading this, you may be a Boston fan, perhaps even a New York or Philadelphia fan, or a fan of some other city's teams. Let's say you're a baseball fan, and you're devoting mid-February (pitchers and catchers reporting) to the end of September (end of the regular season) plus into October (playoffs). You do this on a year in, year out basis.
Olympic hockey rosters are generally announced a month before the tournament starts, in mid-January. By the end of February, the Olympics have come and gone, and the players return to the NHL. That's a span of no more than two months, every four years. Is the level of devotion really the same?
Not to get all political on you, but let's face another thing: you take more pride in being American, but one of the best parts about the United States is that you can root for any team you want, and take pride in a city or region as well. You don't enjoy swimming in the tears of Giants fans after the Patriots go on a run? If you're a Cavaliers fan, didn't you love it when the Mavericks stomped the Heat? There's no love lost between 49ers and Seahawks fans, that's for sure. We appreciate these rivalries, or simply rooting against certain players and/or teams on a yearly basis.
You may have been rooting for Phil Kessel the last two weeks, but when the NHL resumes play next week, he's the guy that ditched the Bruins for more money. To the Maple Leafs, of all teams. You may have been rooting against Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, or Tuukka Rask because they weren't on Team USA. But aren't you ready to fully accept them back as your own, hoping they can carry the Bruins to another Stanley Cup title?
I'm not here to turn this into a nationalist vs. a regionalist argument. In fact, I think I just made up the word regionalist to define a region, or more specifically, a city or team one tends to root for. I'm way more focused on the Bruins winning a Stanley Cup, or way more heated about how the Patriots blew it again, how the Red Sox lost another elite center fielder to the Yankees, etc, etc. An Olympic Gold Medal in hockey would've been pretty awesome, no doubt, but the conversation really won't be relevant again until 2018.
And, perhaps the most important point of all: if the US had indeed won the gold medal, who would we have argued about it with? Isn't that what makes sports talk so great to begin with?
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