IIHF 2012 World Championship Preview: Team Canada

Almost every Canadian when they are a kid has something in conman. They dream about one day playing hockey for Team Canada. The majority of these kids will never reach the goal. Very few will reach their goal. They all spend their childhood having five in the morning practices and picture themselves scoring the winning goal on their backyard ice rink.

Canada has thrived on hockey talent for decades upon decades. They dominated the sport until post World War II years. Despite the rest of the world catching up to Canada, the Canadians still are tied for the most IIHF World Championship titles with 24 (tied with Russia/USSR).  Nevertheless, the IIHF rankings say that Canada currently isn’t the top team in Canada. According to the rankings, Canada is fourth next to co-hosts Sweden and Finland. Russia is on top of the rankings.

Canada opens the 2012 World Champions against Slovakia. It’s a game Canada should win if they expect to come claim gold for the first time in the tournament since 2007.  It is the third longest drought in Canadian hockey history. It is something that the 22 players wearing the red and white want to change.

You can view Canada’s roster right here.

It should be noted that these are not the best players in Canada right now. It is obvious that there are still great players still playing for their club team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Furthermore, there are also players that have finished their NHL season and have either declined an invitation from Team Canada or their General Manager of their respected teams don’t want a few players playing in the tournament.

The coach of the Canadian team is Brent Sutter. It is an interesting choice however I believe it is the right choice.  Despite his recent failures with the Calgary Flames, Sutter has had great success with Team Canada at the World Junior level. In addition, he has accomplished many goals with the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels as he coached them to a Memorial Cup title in 2001.  Sutter won’t have junior kids to be able to relate to this time, which is the only reason I question Hockey Canada’s choice. My first pick would have been former NHL coach and current TSN annalist Marc Crawford. However Brent Sutter would have been my second pick so I really can’t complain.

My gut feeling for Canada in this tournament is a Bronze medal finish. They’ll get past the Quarter Finals this year. The past two years Canada has not had very good luck in the Quarters. In 2010 the Canadians fell to the eventual silver medalists Russia and last year they lost to Russia again in a 2-1 heart breaker. For Canada to take home gold its going to take an amazing effort. Russia is always poised to win the gold and Sweden and Finland will not be easy out playing on home ice. Canada will also have to adjust to the big European ice surface.

In every sports tournament there is always a Cinderella that surprises everyone. The last few years it has been Germany and Switzerland.  Germany surprised hockey fans around the world with a fourth place finish in 2010 and Switzerland has always played Canada tough ever since they upset Canada in the 2006 Olympics.

This years tournament has a different format to it. Instead of having four groups of four, IIHF has gone to a two groups of eight format. After the round robin is completed, the tournament goes right into the Quarter Finals. In previous tournaments, after the round robin was completed the top three in each group of four to the second round where there would be two groups of six and more round robin play. I don’t mind the change. The IIHF had the same format for eleven years in a row. The change is worth a try and hopefully it increases the competitiveness of the tournament.

Canada’s first game is today at 6:00AM and its on TSN.

Whitecaps FC Guide of What the Fan Needs to Know About the Canadian Championship

 The Vancouver Whitecaps will start the journey to be crowned 2012 Canadian Champions Wednesday at Commonwealth Stadium when they take on Edmonton FC in the first leg of a two legged series.

This isn’t an ordinary MLS match for the Whitecaps. The game doesn’t even count in the MLS  standings. The Canadian Championship is a separate tournament involving every Canadian team in the MLS and the NASL (North American Soccer League).

The four participants are Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and Edmonton FC. The winner of the tournament will get Canada’s one and only berth in the CONCACAF Champions League.

It’s an important tournament for the Whitecaps to win. The MLS is viewed as a lower key league compared to other leagues such as the one in Mexico. If the Whitecaps are  to win the Canadian Championship they would be assured at least two extra games against a club team from a country like Honduras or El Salvador. The farther Vancouver would go in the tournament the better quality of teams the Whitecaps would play. The more games the Whitecaps would play would give the team just that much more experience.

Vancouver has never made it to the CONCACAF Champions League. However, they have been extremely close on a couple occasions. The first time came in 2009 when they got edged out by goal difference by Toronto FC. This was a heartbreaking event to swallow because it was out of their control entering the final day of the tournament. It was out of their control because back then, Edmonton FC didn’t exist and the tournament was a round robin format. Montreal and Toronto FC happened to play in the final game. Montreal was already eliminated from first place and decided to rest some of their best players.

The end result of this was Toronto FC running up the score on Montreal and winning 6-1.  Toronto FC needed to win by five goals to win the title. To make it even more heartbreaking, the sixth goal was scored in the 90^th minute. Whitecaps fans claim that Montreal was unsportsmanlike. In contrast, Montreal fans feel that what happened was okay and they were resting players for more important games coming up.

The second time the Whitecaps felt they got ripped off was last year in the 2011 Canadian Championship. This time, the Whitecaps were playing in the final. The Whitecaps and Toronto FC had played a week before and tied 1-1. The ninety minutes at BMO field at Toronto would decide who would represent Canada in the CONCACAF Champions League. The Whitecaps were up 1-0 in the 62^nd minute. After a first rain delay at halftime, the referee finally postponed the game when Thunder and Lightning were in the area. The game was called because of what the referee said was “unplayable field conditions.” That would have been fair however it was unplayable field conditions for the majority of the game. Toronto FC claims that the decision was the right because of player safety. In contrast, Vancouver believes that if it was Toronto that was up 1-0 they would have wanted to play on.

The game was restarted a month later and the Whitecaps lost 2-1.

This year the Whitecaps are focused to erase a lot of bad memories. The Whitecaps are overwhelming favorites to advance past Edmonton. In fact, the Whitecaps would have to really play careless to not advance.

The first leg of the series starts at 7pm and can be seen on Sportsnet Pacific and West. 

Whitecaps FC VS Columbus Crew (MLS) Preview

The Whitecaps will go for their second MLS road victory this Saturday when they travel to Columbus to take on the 7^th place team in the Eastern Conference the Columbus Crew.

The Whitecaps can take great strides as a franchise if they can get the three points. The 3-2-2 start for the Whitecaps is a nice start but there is room for improvement. The Whitecaps have been inconsistent all year and have struggled to put the ball in the back of the net. Vancouver has only scored two goals away from B.C. Place. 

More importantly, the Whitecaps are starting a stench of where they will play likely eight games in a span of three and a half weeks.  I say likely because the 2012 Canadian Championship is kicks off in Edmonton on Wednesday. The Whitecaps are projected to win the 2012 Canadian Championship. It won’t be easy. Soccer is very competitive at times and the Impact de Montreal and Toronto FC will be giving Vancouver all they can handle. Therefore, Martin Rennie’s team needs to be playing its best soccer going into the tournament to win their first ever Canadian Championship.  This includes scoring away goals as it is the tie breaker if the teams are tied after the two legged series.

Aside from that, the Whitecaps are still in the mix in the Western Conference. It is early but it is also important they stay competitive. Last year, this team fell behind so far the team wasn’t able to build any momentum. The more games the Whitecaps stay in the mix for the playoffs, the more they can build for the future. The more momentum they build the better. Being competitive is the goal as it’s hard to expect this team to stay in contention for the whole season. 

The Crew has some troubles of its own sitting 7^th in the Eastern Conference at 2-3-1. Quite honestly, that record is worse than it sounds. Their two wins came against expansion Montreal and pointless Toronto. Unlike Vancouver, the Crew has difficulties preventing goals. This could be troublesome for Columbus if they fall behind early. Joe Cannon has been a brick wall in net for the Whitecaps except for a couple of outings where he let in three. Cannon has found his form again and if the game last Saturday against FC Dallas is any indication, Cannon will be hard to beat.

This game will show how much the Whitecaps have matured from last year. It’s a very winnable game if the Whitecaps play to their potential. Last year, the Whitecaps would find ways to draw or even lose these types of games. Last year was quite disappointing for the Whitecaps but they have put that behind them. A win would really go along way. On the flip side, a loss would show the league that the Whitecaps are pretenders and not contenders.

The game kicks off at 4:30pm and can be seen on Sportsnet Pacific. 

Mike Gillis Season Ending Press Conference Recap

Mike Gillis had his season ending press conference at Rogers Arena this morning. Any General Manager in the NHL will say that a season ending press conference in late April is not on any ones agenda, especially from a GM that had built a Presidents Trophy winning team for the second consecutive year. Not to mention a team that went to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Mike Gillis would have much rather of woken up in a luxurious hotel in Los Angels awaiting Game six of the Western Conference Quarter Finals with the Kings.

You can view the whole press conference right here.

Lots of topics were addressed. What is the future of the head coach Alain Vigneault and what is his plan going to be with starting goalie Cory Schneider and back up goalie (if you want to call it that) Roberto Luongo. Other topics were why he decided to trade away Cody Hodgson and the health of Mason Raymond and Manny Malholtra after both enduring serious injuries last year.

It is a given whenever a Presidents Trophy winner goes out in the first round that change has to happen. The 2012 Canucks are no exception. Mike Gillis will determine how drastic the changes will be.

Gillis didn’t give many hints to whether or not Vigneault will be the Canucks coach when training camp rolls around in September. One would think that it’s his time to be shown the door. He has been the Canucks coach since 2007 and considering there are extremely high expectations with the Canucks team every year; it might be time to fire the coach. Keep in mind Vigneault has the fourth longest tenure in the NHL and just because a coach is fired it doesn’t mean he was a bad coach or that his time in Vancouver was a complete failure. As the saying goes: “Coaches are hired to be fired.”

Gillis did mention that if he had a chance to trade Cody Hodgson again he would still make the trade.  Gillis wasn’t going to share any personal encounters the two of them had over the course of the season. Gillis believes that every player should have the ability to talk to him while the conversation remains private. My guess is that Hodgson wasn’t happy playing in Vancouver or wasn’t happy with the ice time he was getting. Hodgson is Ontario born and the fact that he was traded to Buffalo leads me to believe that he wanted to play on the east coast close to home.

Gillis acknowledged that he was going to take some time to see what goalie he is going to go with for the long term. After all, it is a massive decison that could affect the team for years to come. There are pros and cons about each goaltender that I’ll go in depth with closer to July 1^st.  Gillis mentioned that not only Luongo and Schneider  great competitors on the ice, they’re also great friends off the ice. Luongo did say when the players cleaned out their lockers today that if the team was wanting to trade him in the offseason he would be willing to waive his no trade clause.     

We can’t take too much from the press conference today. However, it gives the fans a general outline of what the offseason is going to look like. Don’t expect any moves to be made this week.  No trades can be made until the day after the Stanley Cup Final is over and a coaching change if one is in the future would likely come in ten-twenty days. 

The Relationship Between British Columbian Athletes and Their Fans Through the Communication of Twitter

The Twitter website has impacted the cyberspace world in a significant way (Pegoraro, 2010; Kassing and Sanderson, 2010; Hambrick et al., 2010). Through Twitter, the fans feel more connected to their sports heroes because instead of reading reports from the newspaper or hearing a television program such as Sports Centre, the fans are able to read an athletes’ commentary within an hour of the game being completed (Pegoraro, 2010; Hambrick et al., 2010). Twitter is a communication website where you can send messages with 140 characters or less (Pegoraro, 2010; Kassing and Sanderson, 2010; Hambrick et al., 2010). Twitter has made the average sports fan feel more connected to their favorite player, media member or team. Fans feel closer to their sports icons because fans feel like they have a more personal connection with the athletes.

Bloch (2002) states that e-mail aids communication between second language students and their teachers at the university level. In a similar way, Twitter has changed the relationship between professional athletes and their fans. Twitter was found to be useful to bring fans and players closer together (Pegoraro, 2010; Kassing and Sanderson, 2010; Hambrick et al., 2010). Pegoraro (2010) indicated that NFL players and Pro golfers seem to tweet the most. In contrast, NHL players were not well represented. Pegoraro, (2010) illustrated athletes’ use of Twitter to talk about their personal lives and was a great tool for fan-athlete interaction. Kassing and Sanderson (2010) dissected what athletes said during a major cycling event. The cyclists provided commentary and opinions that improved the event for the fans. Hambrick et al (2010) viewed 2,000 tweets from professional athletes and placed them into six categories. The six categories are: interaction, Diversion, Information Sharing, Fanship, Content and promotion. The authors of the study found that the majority of the tweets were interactive and very few were Promotional.  All three studies demonstrated an improved relationship between fans and athletes through the use of Twitter.

Methodology

While researchers have looked at Twitter interactions between athletes and their fans in a variety of places throughout the world, little research has looked at this issue in British Columbia. I planned to answer the question of whether or not there are any differences in B.C. athletes’ use of Twitter compared to other professional athletes? The differences were examined when I looked at data from previous articles and compared them to tweets from British Columbia athletes. The site that I used to collect the data was the actual Twitter site (twitter.com). I picked five B.C. athletes that are moderate to high users of Twitter and recorded the tweets from each athlete’s profile page. This will give me the data for the study which I can compare the tweets with Hambrick’s data. For the research, I collected twenty tweets from each athlete. I did a textual analysis on the tweets to determine any patterns. From this I tried to see if there were any similarities between B.C. athletes to the rest of the athletes that tweet in the previous studies.

For my study I wanted to get athletes from a variety of sports and with different experience levels. After selecting a number of B.C. born athletes, I examined their Twitter accounts to make sure they tweeted enough to make a representative sample sufficient for analysis. I came up with three NHL players (Derek Grant, Kyle Turris and Brendan Morrison) one NBA player (Steve Nash) and one Pro golfer (Adam Hadwin). I have a good cross section with these five athletes. Three are relatively new professionals (Grant, Turris and Hadwin), one other, Morrison, is a long time pro, and the other, Nash, is recognized around the world as being one of the best in his sport. The primary sources of data were the Twitter accounts for my five athletes. The tweets were examined then placed into one of six categories. I analyzed the data using the same categories Hambrick et, al. used. Having the same categories as in previous studies gave me a platform to base my results on. 

Results

The tweets were classified into six categories. The category that had the most tweets by my five athletes was Diversion. These tweets included anything that was not sports related that was directed at all of the athletes’ Twitter followers. For instance, when Brendan Morrison from the Chicago Blackhawks tweets “First home cooked meal in 6 weeks. Can't beat wild pacific salmon!! @Tofino_SWC”, this is Diversion because having a home cooked meal has nothing to do with sports.  The category with the second most tweets that athletes did was with Fanship.  Fanship is when an athlete tweets words of encouragement or congratulations directed at the player, organization or league that is not connected to their own sport. For example, Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns tweeted “Anybody hear anything new about Fabrice Muamba's condition?” Nash is referring to an incident with a Bolton soccer player who had a heart attack during an FA Cup match. Nash was voicing his concern for the 23 year-old athlete. Information Sharing was the third most common reason for the athletes to tweet. Information Sharing is when athletes tell their fans about how they are feeling about their performance or their own teams’ play related to their particular sport. Personally, I thought Information Sharing would be the most common reason the athletes would tweet.  Adam Hadwin of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) demonstrates Information Sharing with the tweet “Headed to houston then driving to lafeyette. Chitimacha louisiana open, then shell houston monday. Last chance to get into masters field!” Hadwin was telling his Twitter followers his PGA schedule. He is ultimately trying to qualify for the Masters at Augusta National, arguably, the most prestigious tournament on the PGA tour. Even though this could be a Promotional tweet, I believe it is an Information Sharing tweet because Hadwin is really telling his followers his upcoming schedule. He is not telling his followers to watch the Masters on CBS. Tied with Information Sharing with 11% of the tweets was Promotion. The tweet fell into the Promotional category if it was advertising a certain event coming up. This could include anything from a television show being shown at the current time or an event where the fan has to purchase a ticket to attend an event.

Interaction only produced 9% of the tweets from this study. To be defined as an interactive tweet it had to be directed at one of the writers’ followers. For the athlete to make it Interactive, all the athlete needed to do was include the “@” sign to confirm the fans’ Twitter identification. The fact that it is Interactive gets the fans to communicate to the athlete directly. This is fun because it allows fans to feel closer to famous athletes.

The least number of tweets the athletes tweeted was Content. It was a Content tweet if the athlete attached a link within that tweet. In that link could be anything from an interesting article from a local newspaper or a picture of what that athlete had for lunch that day.

Figure 1 Categorization of tweets

	Inter-active	Diver-sion	Content	Information Sharing	Fanship	Promo-tional
Adam Hadwin	5	3	1	8	3	0
Steve Nash	2	3	0	2	8	5
Derek Grant	1	7	0	0	8	4
Kyle Turris	1	10	5	0	3	2
Brendan Morrison	0	14	1	0	3	2

Conclusion

The results I found were very interesting. I expected to see Information Sharing tweets  represented by a higher percentage because I expected the athletes to focus on their professional status as this is the reason why they have a large number of followers. Twitter is an appropriate tool for celebrities and athletes to connect with fans. For example, Twitter is the place where fans want to hear more about their favorite athletes sooner than they would in the pre-Twitter era. Therefore, I think it’s ironic that more of the tweets weren’t Information Sharing.

By comparison, the research of Hambrick et al. came out similar in a couple categories (Interaction and Information Sharing) but vastly different in the amount of Fanship tweets. This could be because of the time of year that my study was done. For example, Derek Grant of the Ottawa Senators tweeted “Congrats Spartan Basketball!!! #unrealgame #B1G #wow”.  Derek is giving a shout out to his alma mater Michigan State after they defeated Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference basketball Championship which is a basketball tournament that leads into March Madness. March Madness is an annual basketball tournament that is watched religiously across the United States. Therefore, most of my athletes like Derek were giving words of encouragement to their former schools. Most of my Fanship tweets were about March Madness as the tournament was going on at the time of data collection.

My results from my research indicate that British Columbian athletes’ tweets are fairly different from the athletes studied by Hambrick et al. There was much less Interaction with my athletes compared to Hambrick et al., however, they found that Fanship was a small contributor to their research. In contrast, Fanship tweets had 27% percent of my data representing the second most number of tweets. I think a lot of the reason for the different results between the two studies is because the time of year and the popularity of the athletes chosen by Hambrick et al. and the athletes I chose. For example, the athletes that Hambrick et al. chose are not only well known in North America but also they’re well known around the world. In my study, only Steve Nash is well known globally. Even though my study doesn’t have a big impact on life in the big scheme of things, it is interesting to observe where technology is taking us. It also has some limitations. My study was over a brief period of time and was limited to five athletes.  I’m quite confident I would have seen different results at different times of the year for example when players are in the off-season. 

Bibliography

Bloch, J. (2002) Student/teacher Interaction Via Email: The Social Context of Internet Discourse,

Journal Of Second Language Writing, 11(2), 117 – 134, doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(02)00064-4

Hambrick, M., Simmons, J.,  Greenhalgh, G. and Greenwell C. (2010)  Understanding

Professional Athletes' Use of Twitter: A Content Analysis of Athlete Tweets, International Journal of Sport Communication, 3, 454 -471. url: http://www.humankinetics.com.proxy.ufv.ca:2048/IJSC/journalAbout.cfm

Kassing, J. and Sanderson, J. (2010) Fan-Athlete Interaction and Twitter Tweeting Through the

Giro: A Case Study. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3, 113 – 128. url: http://www.humankinetics.com.proxy.ufv.ca:2048/IJSC/journalAbout.cfm

Pegoraro, A (2010) Look who’s Talking - Athletes on Twitter: A Case Study. International Journal

of Sport Communication, 3, 501 – 514. url: http://www.humankinetics.com.proxy.ufv.ca:2048/IJSC/journalAbout.cfm

https://twitter.com/#!/ahadwingolf

https://es.twitter.com/#!/DGrant27

https://twitter.com/#!/kyleturris

https://twitter.com/#!/SteveNash

https://twitter.com/#!/7bmo