With the Stanley Cup playoffs getting down to the wire, it’s understandable if many fans didn’t pay much attention to the World Hockey Championships that wrapped up on the long weekend in Denmark. I happen to be one of those who does pay attention and it was disappointing to see Canada finish without a medal in 4th place. Sweden won Gold, Switzerland Silver and the USA Bronze. The world championships are a really big deal in European countries, much more so than in North America. Canada sends a team made up of NHL’ers from teams that missed the playoffs or were knocked out early including arguably the best player anywhere, Connor McDavid. Our team always has expectations of playing for Gold and likely winning it. We have won the most medals of any country since the event began in 1920 and the most Gold medals since the playoff round was introduced in 1992. However, Sweden, Russia and the Czech Republic are catching up and close behind us. Even Latvia made the quarter finals and Switzerland beat Canada in the semi’s. Sweden, with 20 NHL players on their roster, was the dominant team, not losing a single game in the tournament, while Team Canada just couldn’t seem to score goals. Our hockey brain trust better re-think our strategy going forward if we want to maintain bragging rights about having the best hockey players in the world.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.