The World Junior Championships – a golden tradition, for so much more
I’ve had a fair share of heartbreaks – a just fact for most sports fans (and those who tell you different are either lying, or people who wear Los Angeles Kings hats).
The experience doesn’t make the next one any easier to digest. It still hurts, arguably just as bad – or more – than the one before. The heartbreaks usually outnumber the euphoric victories, too. To put it simply, if you choose to sign your name along the dotted line of that fan-contract, disappointments won’t be unfamiliar.
It was five years, and a 60-minute hockey game that felt like both 60-seconds and 60-days.
Through that disappointment though, you will still set your alarm (or rather, multiple alarms) for three and four in the morning to drag yourself out of bed to watch Team Canada play across the world. You’ll do it every morning of the World Junior Championship, even the morning where you are forced to watch as they place fourth in the tournament – losing out on a bronze medal – for the second consecutive year. You’ll do it because that’s what you’ve grown up doing. You’ll do it because it’s tradition.
December 26: the beginning of the World Junior Championships. That’s my Christmas. Early mornings, the classic Canada versus the United States New Years Eve match-up, and the unpredictability that is promised almost annually in a welcomed underdog – that’s tradition.
Despite Canada’s two-year medal drought, and five-year gold-less skid, my best friend and I purchased the Toronto package for the 2015 tournament a year in advance. We were ready. Even then, however, I don’t think we fully recognized the magnitude of what we signed up for.
We sat in the definition of nosebleed seats, partaking in continuous waves that began in the lower bowl of the Air Canada Centre (I would pay to see that happen at Leafs games), watching rivalries in the stands unfold (witnessing a Russian slap a Canadian during a game that featured neither country), all while absorbing why this tournament has such a grasp on us.
That grasp comes from watching Denmark win – and celebrate – their second ever game in the history of the World Juniors; it comes from a young Slovakian goaltender receiving multiple standing ovations from a sold out Canadian crowd; it comes from the anticipation of seeing your country win gold at home.
Although, that gold extends so much further than just the medal.
It’s in the “Goalie!” chants that rang through the ACC when Denis Godla didn’t receive Player of the Game following Slovakia’s loss to Canada. It’s in the need for two empty net goals to solidify the win against the Americans on New Years Eve. It’s in giving Denmark a well-earned ovation for their efforts. It’s in the sea of red that erupted for the Slovakian underdog when they took bronze. It’s in the rendition of O’Canada that would be sung amongst the crowd before every Canadian game reached its finish (because even the best need a dress rehearsal). It’s in the final minutes of the gold medal game that felt like hours. It’s in holding your breath for much longer than you ever knew to be possible. It’s in jumping, yelling, and high fiving every stranger in sight because Canada did it – they held off the Russians. They captured gold on home ice.
Sports are funny that way.
We think we’re after that one thing, the trophy or the medal, and for the most part, we usually are. But we rarely recognize everything else along the way – everything that turns that glove throwing, bench jumping, gold medal winning moment into exactly what it is.
Watching Team Canada reach the top of the world may have been a childhood dream of mine, a dream that I got to cross off the list as I belted out O’Canada louder than I have ever done before. Yet, witnessing gold was so much more.
It was the anticipation.
It was the unexpected.
It was knowing the one alternative to being champions, and what that feels like.
It was five years, and a 60-minute hockey game that felt like both 60-seconds and 60-days.
It was the blur between seconds remaining and the fireworks erupting.
Witnessing gold was indescribable.