Canada preparing Burrows for Olympic scapegoat role?
Decision to omit hockey’s hottest property may come back to haunt hosts
TEAM Canada’s management has admitted that leaving high-flying Canuck Alex Burrows from its Olympic roster may be a decision they will come to regret.
Despite being one of the hottest properties in the NHL this season, Vancouver’s Burrows will play no part in this month’s Winter Games. Although considered an outside contender at the start of this current season, a series of eye-catching performances – which included back-to-back hat-tricks last month – has caused some to ask why the forward will see no Olympic action.
Amongst those asking such questions is executive director of Team Canada Steve Yzerman.
“We discussed him last summer at the camp and in the fall but when we drew up the list of players (in December) there wasn’t a lot of conversation about him. Then we announced the team and he went out and scored back-to-back hat tricks,” Yzerman told Ed Willes of The Province.
“I watched him (get four points against the Leafs on Saturday) and you’re like ‘Wow’. He’s been the hottest player in the league since Christmas and you sit there and wonder. But that’s the nature of this job. We felt we were doing the right thing and we still feel that way,” he finished.
With one of the central figures in Canada’s Olympic efforts questioning Burrow’s exclusion before a puck hits the ice, is it unfair to think that the host nation’s hockey team may not be brimming with confidence?
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Is it just me or does this smack ever so slightly of desperation? Does this amount to seeking an excuse before the games start for fear the Canadians fail to justify their tags as favourites?
OnSportsbook.com, Canada is averaging around +180 to win the competition outright, with Russia the only team considered to be a close contender at +350.
Couple those odds with multi-storey Team Canada banners in Vancouver, talk in sports media circles focusing more and more on the hockey competition and a palpable level of public expectation and you’ve got a potentially dangerous amount of pressure.
Perhaps the offering up of excuses at such an early stage should serve as warning to bettors to consider some of the long-odds options instead of the nervy hosts.
John Hogan
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