Skip to content

Germans make mark in Olympic hockey

With the Olympic games now in the books the question always gets asked: What is the biggest story? Is it the triumphant return to gold of Canada’s power “couple” Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir? Or how about the incredible story of Regina’s Mark McMorris
Christopher Lee, reporter

With the Olympic games now in the books the question always gets asked: What is the biggest story?

Is it the triumphant return to gold of Canada’s power “couple” Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir?

Or how about the incredible story of Regina’s Mark McMorris, who rebounded from life threatening injuries to return to prominence and win an Olympic bronze medal?

Or how about the story of Wojtek Wolski, who made the Canadian Men’s Olympic hockey roster a year and a half after breaking his neck?

All of those stories are incredible, and admittedly caused me to reach for the Kleenex box, but it was another story which left me most impressed.

And amazingly it was not a story about a Canadian or Canada at all.

This is the story of the German men’s Olympic hockey team.

The Germans captured the Olympic silver medals, and were one goal away from winning gold.

Sure you might argue, that it doesn’t matter or that it’s a tainted medal because the NHLers weren’t there.

And fine, you could argue that but to me that storyline does not matter.

This is a German squad who needed to beat Sweden and Canada in the quarter and semi-finals just to get to the gold medal game, and nearly beat an Olympic Athletes from Russia team (sidebar: I do not like writing it that way), who featured approximately half of the team they would have sent had the NHL taken part.

So it was an impressive run from a team not included in the six hockey powers of the world.

Keeping in mind too, that four years ago while Sidney Crosby and Carey Price were leading Canada to gold, the Germans were sitting at home watching as they did not even qualify for the Olympics.

That is one impressive turnaround.

Four years ago they could not even beat the Austrians to qualify for the Olympics and now they’re beating Canada and the Swedes.

That’s pretty amazing.

Even more amazing, in the history of hockey at the Olympics the Germans had never won more than bronze, which they managed twice before finishing 3rd in 1976 and in 1932 when there were just four teams.

So sure while Virtue and Moir, or McMorris, or Wolski, or any other Canadian is making headlines for their Olympic efforts, to me it is the Germans who deserve the most credit.

Sure NHLers were not there, but that should not matter.

This nation just made one of the most impressive turnarounds in Olympic hockey history.

NHLers or not, that is impressive.