Sports

Canada’s blind luck led it to Alphonso Davies – and the 2022 World Cup

Published

2 years ago

November 18, 2022

Illustration by MICHAEL BYERS

Right at this moment, as we’re about to begin soccer’s quadrennial sorting, there’s an argument to be made about the Canadian national men’s team.

Not that it is finally world class, which is true. Or that it’s the most in-form North American team, which is true as well. But that it is the best non-European, non-South American national team in the world.

In fairness, no non-European, non-South American team has won a World Cup. Or even got close. But it’s still something.

If we assume that everyone on Earth follows and plays soccer, and that 15 per cent of the global population tends to be best at it (Europe plus South America), we’re currently top out of the other 85.

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Ten, 20 years ago, Canada was in the bottom half. At times, maybe the bottom quarter.

What changed?

We have heard and will continue to hear a bunch of process-oriented explanations from people who make their living from soccer in this country.

If a business makes a ton of money, the people who run that business are never going to say, ‘Who knew people would like yoga pants so much?’ They’re going to say they planned it all out that way and they hired the smartest people to execute their plan (though no one ever blames a business going the opposite way on employee stupidity).

As far as the Canadian soccer establishment is concerned, the men’s team got good because of scouting, coaching, grassroots development, good examples (ie. the national women’s team) and money. Money has to feature in there somewhere. That’s how you get more of it.

All those things are true, to a point.

But mostly it’s blind luck. When a thing that was really bad suddenly becomes really good, it’s always luck.

The most important stroke of luck was that moment in the mid-aughts when Victoria and Debeah Davies chose Canada.

Everything good about the current Canadian program stems from that decision. Their son, Alphonso, playing in Edmonton youth soccer, is another of those decisions. His lucky choice of the right coaches and mentors is another. Picking Major League Soccer as his launch point; Canada Soccer leveraging Davies’s proximity to convince him to commit to Canada when he had other options; the Vancouver Whitecaps agreeing to let him leave for Germany, never mind Bayern Munich’s foresight in wanting him – all of those are crucial, unobvious choices. Flip the order around a bit and things would probably have gone very differently.

Most North American team athletes get put in a pipeline at an early age. If you’re very, very good at basketball as a 12-year-old, someone who matters is going to recognize that. They are financially incentivized to do so.

That sort of pipeline doesn’t exist in Canada. There is no direct route to the best clubs (and, therefore, the best training) in Europe. The system favours people who are able to navigate it (ie. those who are already well connected). It certainly does not favour working-class refugees starting from ‘Go’ in a soccer backwater.

When someone such as Davies, talented though he may be, manages to break through all those layers and end up at a major European team when he is still a teenager, that is a sort of sporting miracle. Where Canada is concerned, it is the stroke of luck that made all others possible.

That a generation of players would spring up around Davies, about the same age and on the same development path, is another bolt out of nowhere.

Ten years ago, Jonathan David and Tajon Buchanan might have been Jonathan de Guzman or Owen Hargreaves. After banging their heads against the Canadian soccer establishment for a while, they might have chosen other routes to national teams in other countries. David might play for the U.S., where he was born. Buchanan might be angling to get into the Belgian setup, where he plays professionally now.

They might’ve been Dwayne De Rosario or Julian de Guzman (Jonathan’s brother). Gifted local products who spent their best years in low-level conflict with the people who run the country’s soccer setup, increasingly disgruntled and, eventually, alienated. Sometimes losing isn’t an isolated act. It can be a learned pattern. It’s hard not to look back at the raw, aggregate talent of the Canadian teams of the early 21st century and wonder how they lost so often when it would have been easier for them to win.

Davies gave David, Buchanan and all the rest permission to treat the Canadian national program with a respect it probably didn’t deserve at the time he gave it. If a player that good thinks Canada is worth it, then everyone else loses permission to scoff.

A great team is exactly as good as its greatest player thinks it is. Another huge stroke of Canadian luck is that the team’s most gifted player has a force of personality to match. Davies took a theoretical idea – ‘Given its intrinsic advantages, Canada should be competitive at men’s soccer’ – and made it practical. He did that by himself.

Long before Canada plays in the World Cup, and regardless of how it turns out, Davies is already the most valuable – emphasis on that word – player in it.

The right person arriving at the right time and making (for the purposes of our soccer program) the right choices for the right reasons. That’s how Canada did it. So, in other words, blind luck.

It’s a good news/bad news situation from here on.

The bad news is that World Cups don’t tend to reward luck. The people you think will win don’t usually do. They always do. There has never been an even mildly surprising winner of this thing.

Canada is good enough to get out of its group. After that, it’s a function of luck. But getting lucky once would still be something.

Estimable soccer countries – South Korea, Cameroon, Ireland – are still dining out on one glorious run in a World Cup that didn’t result in a title. Sometimes, the quarters are enough.

The good news is that success tends to beget more of the same. Every incremental step Canada takes up the ladder makes it more likely it will take another.

Others have to win in order to justify their place in the soccer world. Just this once, Canada wins merely through attendance. We’ve arrived on the world stage. Just hearing our anthem played before the first game with Belgium will be a signpost in Canadian sports history.

And after that, who knows? It’s possible – not at all likely, but possible – we are lucky in the timing of our luck. It would be a first, but firsts are a function of luck, too.

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Red Wings sign Moritz Seider to 7-year deal worth nearly $60M

Published

4 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Red Wings made another investment this week in a young standout, signing Moritz Seider to a seven-year contract worth nearly $60 million.

The Red Wings announced the move with the 23-year-old German defenseman on Thursday, three days after keeping 22-year-old forward Lucas Raymond with a $64.6 million, eight-year deal.

Detroit drafted Seider with the No. 6 pick overall eight years ago and he has proven to be a great pick. He has 134 career points, the most by a defenseman drafted in 2019.

He was the NHL’s only player to have at least 200 hits and block 200-plus shots last season, when he scored a career-high nine goals and had 42 points for the second straight year.

Seider won the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie in 2022 after he had a career-high 50 points.

Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman is banking on Seider, whose contract will count $8.55 million annually against the cap, and Raymond to turn a rebuilding team into a winner.

Detroit has failed to make the playoffs in eight straight seasons, the longest postseason drought in franchise history.

The Red Wings, who won four Stanley Cups from 1997 to 2008, have been reeling since their run of 25 straight postseasons ended in 2016.

Detroit was 41-32-9 last season and finished with a winning record for the first time since its last playoff appearance.

Yzerman re-signed Patrick Kane last summer and signed some free agents, including Vladimir Tarasenko to a two-year contract worth $9.5 million after he helped the Florida Panthers hoist the Cup.

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Veterans Tyson Beukeboom, Karen Paquin lead Canada’s team at WXV rugby tournament

Published

5 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

Veterans Tyson Beukeboom and Karen Paquin will lead Canada at the WXV 1 women’s rugby tournament starting later this month in the Vancouver area.

WXV 1 includes the top three teams from the Women’s Six Nations (England, France and Ireland) and the top three teams from the Pacific Four Series (Canada, New Zealand, and the United States).

Third-ranked Canada faces No. 4 France, No. 7 Ireland and No. 1 England in the elite division of the three-tiered WXV tournament that runs Sept. 29 to Oct. 12 in Vancouver and Langley, B.C. No. 2 New Zealand and the eighth-ranked U.S. make up the six-team WVX 1 field.

“Our preparation time was short but efficient. This will be a strong team,” Canada coach Kevin Rouet said in a statement. “All the players have worked very hard for the last couple of weeks to prepare for WXV and we are excited for these next three matches and for the chance to play on home soil here in Vancouver against the best rugby teams in the world.

“France, Ireland and England will each challenge us in different ways but it’s another opportunity to test ourselves and another step in our journey to the Rugby World Cup next year.”

Beukeboom serves as captain in the injury absence of Sophie de Goede. The 33-year-old from Uxbridge, Ont., earned her Canadian-record 68th international cap in Canada’s first-ever victory over New Zealand in May at the Pacific Four Series.

Twenty three of the 30 Canadian players selected for WXV 1 were part of that Pacific Four Series squad.

Rouet’s roster includes the uncapped Asia Hogan-Rochester, Caroline Crossley and Rori Wood.

Hogan-Rochester and Crossley were part of the Canadian team that won rugby sevens silver at the Paris Olympics, along with WXV teammates Fancy Bermudez, Olivia Apps, Alysha Corrigan and Taylor Perry. Wood is a veteran of five seasons at UBC.

The 37-year-old Paquin, who has 38 caps for Canada including the 2014 Rugby World Cup, returns to the team for the first time since the 2021 World Cup.

Canada opens the tournament Sept. 29 against France at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver before facing Ireland on Oct. 5 at Willoughby Stadium at Langley Events Centre, and England on Oct. 12 at B.C. Place.

The second-tier WXV 2 and third-tier WXV 3 are slated to run Sept. 27 to Oct. 12, in South Africa and Dubai, respectively.

WXV 2 features Australia, Italy, Japan, Scotland, South Africa and Wales while WXV 3 is made up of Fiji, Hong Kong, Madagascar, the Netherlands, Samoa and Spain.

The tournament has 2025 World Cup qualification implications, although Canada, New Zealand and France, like host England, had already qualified by reaching the semifinals of the last tournament.

Ireland, South Africa, the U.S., Japan, Fiji and Brazil have also booked their ticket, with the final six berths going to the highest-finishing WXV teams who have not yet qualified through regional tournaments.

Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team WXV 1 Squad

Forwards

Alexandria Ellis, Ottawa, Stade Français Paris (France); Brittany Kassil, Guelph, Ont., Guelph Goats; Caroline Crossley, Victoria, Castaway Wanderers; Courtney Holtkamp, Rimbey, Alta., Red Deer Titans Rugby; DaLeaka Menin, Vulcan, Alta., Exeter Chiefs (England); Emily Tuttosi, Souris, Man., Exeter Chiefs (England); Fabiola Forteza, Quebec City, Stade Bordelais (France); Gabrielle Senft, Regina, Saracens (England); Gillian Boag, Calgary, Gloucester-Hartpury (England); Julia Omokhuale, Calgary, Leicester Tigers (England); Karen Paquin, Quebec City, Club de rugby de Quebec; Laetitia Royer, Loretteville, Que., ASM Romagnat (France); McKinley Hunt, King City, Ont., Saracens (England); Pamphinette Buisa, Gatineau, Que., Ottawa Irish; Rori Wood, Sooke, B.C., College Rifles RFC; Sara Cline, Edmonton, Leprechaun Tigers; Tyson Beukeboom, Uxbridge, Ont., Ealing Trailfinders (England);

Backs

Alexandra Tessier, Sainte-Clotilde-de-Horton, Que., Exeter Chiefs (England); Alysha Corrigan, Charlottetown, P.E.I., CRFC; Asia Hogan-Rochester, Toronto, Toronto Nomads; Claire Gallagher, Caledon, Ont., Leicester Tigers (England); Fancy Bermudez, Edmonton, Saracens (England); Julia Schell, Uxbridge, Ont., Ealing Trailfinders (England); Justine Pelletier, Rivière-du-Loup, Que, Stade Bordelais (France); Mahalia Robinson, Fulford, Que., Town of Mount Royal RFC; Olivia Apps, Lindsay, Ont., Lindsay RFC; Paige Farries, Red Deer, Alta., Saracens (England); Sara Kaljuvee, Ajax, Ont., Westshore RFC; Shoshanah Seumanutafa, White Rock, B.C., Counties Manukau (New Zealand); Taylor Perry, Oakville, Ont., Exeter Chiefs (England).

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Follow @NeilMDavidson on X platform, formerly known as Twitter

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

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Vancouver Canucks star goalie Thatcher Demko working through rare muscle injury

Published

5 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

PENTICTON, B.C. – Vancouver Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko says he’s been working his way back from a rare lower-body muscle injury since being sidelined in last season’s playoffs.

The 28-year-old all star says the rehabilitation process has been frustrating, but he has made good progress in recent weeks and is confident he’ll be able to return to playing.

He says he and his medical team have spent the last few months talking to specialists around the world, and have not found a single other hockey player who has dealt with the same injury.

Demko missed several weeks of the last season with a knee ailment and played just one game in Vancouver’s playoff run last spring before going down with the current injury.

He was not on the ice with his teammates as the Canucks started training camp in Penticton, B.C., on Thursday, but skated on his own before the sessions began.

Demko posted a 35-14-2 record with a .918 percentage, a 2.45 goals-against average and five shutouts for Vancouver last season.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

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