DORIAN GEIGER
Sports Editor

VANCOUVER – The golden script couldn’t have been scribbled more perfectly for Canada’s men’s and women’s hockey teams at the 2010 Olympics.

The dual gold medals in Vancouver solidified Canada’s international hockey dominance for another four years and set the stage for a potential triple crown — a golden hat trick for Hockey Canada if the sledge hockey team could follow through at the Vancouver Paralympics.

The golden story that had gripped Canadians from coast to coast in fits of patriotism had been written flawlessly over the past three weeks and all it needed was its closing paragraph — the last chapter of Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad, one of the biggest moments in Canadian history.

Sadly, the authors were unable to conclude the storied campaign and Canada’s first Paralympic sledge hockey showing on home soil did not have the fairy tale result Sidney Crosby and Hayley Wickenheiser’s teams experienced.

After coasting through the round-robin portion of the tournament with a 3-0 record, handily dismantling Italy, Sweden and Norway by notable margins, it was time for not only Team Canada, but the entire sport of sledge hockey to shine on the world stage.

A 3-1 loss to Japan in the semi-finals on March 18 and a 2-1 defeat handed out by Norway on March 19 in the bronze medal showdown eliminated any prospect of the sport establishing itself alongside the original ice hockey — at least for now.

Canadian hockey fans and media can extrapolate forever, but I truly believed a gold medal meant an explosion of sledge hockey across Canada. And loss, however, results in a forgettable Paralympics and essentially a significant nationwide decline in the popularity of the sport that people had so passionately embraced over the course of the Olympiad.

It’s been seen before. Canadian Olympic athletes transform into celebrities overnight for Olympic gold; a sledge hockey gold on Canadian soil would have had the same effect in terms of the sport and propelled the sledge hockey to celebrity status among Canada’s hockey circles.

It could be similar to how few Canucks can recall the men’s Olympic hockey team’s finish at Turin in 2006. It’s straight amnesia for most other than remembering general manager Wayne Gretzky screwed up and Canada didn’t win gold.

For many players, executives and fans of Team Canada’s sledge hockey team, the loss was an epic fail. A gold medal would have boosted the profile and awareness of the sport beyond what most Canadians would be able to fathom. Even a bronze would have even lifted the sport to unprecedented new highs.

The atmosphere at UBC Thunderbird Arena for sledge hockey had the essence of Canada Hockey Place during the Olympics and it was evident that sledge hockey was quickly becoming a new fan favourite. Looking into the lobby of Thunderbird, children happily glided around on roller-sledges having a ball-sledge hockey scrimmage all week. It was weird and phenomenal all at once that something had caught on so rapidly. If you had asked those children a few weeks ago what a sledge was, they would have shrugged their shoulders.

Sledge hockey would have caught on fire on a nationwide scale . Judging by the two gold medals Canada’s men’s and women’s Olympic team grabbed and the way hockey brought our country together for two weeks, sledge hockey in Canada had picked a great time in history to showcase itself to a hockey hungry nation. If it has a puck, Canadians will flock in hordes.

The sledge hockey team will likely bounce back from their lowly Vancouver showing in 2014 at the Paralympics in Sochi, Russia. It’s what Hockey Canada does best — from men’s to women’s to sledge, Canada undoubtedly boasts the most prestigious hockey program in the world.

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video: Dorian Geiger
photos: Gerald Deo