It’s my Parting Shot for my Weekend Short Shots…..

Less than two months until the Winter Olympics and the debate rages as to who should and shouldn’t be on the Canadian men’s roster going to Italy. My Team Canada has young, scoring stars like Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini on it – as well as the grizzled, old veterans like Sidney Crosby and Brad Marchand! You can’t ignore the improvement and high level of play shown by Bedard and Celebrini so far in the 2025-26 N-H-L season. And, on a team with so much depth of scoring at the forward position, guys like Crosby and Marchand are not so vain that being put on a so-called fourth line would be a blow to their egos! Those two don’t care about line labels, they just want to do what they do best – and that’s win at the highest level, which is what the Olympic men’s hockey tournament is finally getting back to being!!

On the other side of the gender hockey spectrum, how concerned should Canadians be about the women’s squad? They’ve been out-scored 20-6 in three Rivalry Series games against the arch-rival Americans, with one game to go tomorrow in Edmonton before the Olympics! The last game was a 10-4 U-S win just on Wednesday at Rogers Place! Has the gold medal window closed on Canada? Is this the last hurrah for Marie-Philippe Poulin, Saskatoon’s own Emily Clark and other long-time veterans of the Canadian women’s program? Should the gold be conceded to the Americans and have Canada just make sure they don’t get eliminated before the final in Milan? Unlike my contention when it comes to men’s hockey, the American women won’t suffer from too much swagger and lose games when it counts the most, which isn’t news for Canada!!

With a Canadian national team from a different sport, I noticed the other day that Alphonso Davies, widely-regarded as the best male soccer player in Canada, has returned to action with Bayern Munich in Germany’s top league! Good news, but I still recall whispers from earlier this year that had the face of the Canadian men’s side not seeing eye to eye with the team’s head coach Jesse Marsch! With the World Cup of soccer six months away, I hope that rumour is just that and that Davies can stay healthy – something that he has been prone to not being able to do the last couple of years!

That’s my Parting Shot. I’m Les Lazaruk…and it turned out nice again!