Let Them Celebrate

The Canadian Women's Olympic Hockey team created (apparently) a whole heap of controversy, when after defeating their American counterparts, 2-0 on Thursday night, the ladies celebrated their gold-medal win.

After the medals were handed out, the players retreated to their dressing room. The excited fans filed out of the arena. This is where it gets real crazy, folks. The players went back out onto the ice, bottles of champagne and cans of beer in-hand, and continued their celebration. They posed for photos, with the aforementioned champagne and beer, and a few even pulled out cigars to grin down on, as they puffed out their proud chests after a memorable win.

Some media members, like Skip Bayless, a stuffy blowhard from ESPN, are treating this incident like the ladies dropped their Cooperalls and mooned the American team or clubbed a baby seal. He's basically calling the Canadian Women's Hockey team a disgrace to our country for "disrespecting the stage they were on"and that they're an "embarrassment to Canadians and little girls watching them".

I am an acquaintance of one of these Olympic hockey players. I know how hard she trains and the months of effort that are put into getting to this point in her career. I know the strict diet she must follow and the sacrifices she must make to stay in shape and stay focused. If she's lucky enough to reach the pinnacle of achievement in her sport with teammates that have essentially been family over the course of a lengthy lead-up to the Olympic Games - by all means - let your hair down out of your helmets.

In fact, the players waited until the arena was essentially empty before going back out onto the ice to have their additional fun. This was their time. They earned that moment. Enjoy it.

Some have taken a stab at Marie-Philip Poulin, who just so happened to score both goals in the deciding game. Ms. Poulin, who is 18 years-old and about to turn 19 in less than a month, was photographed with a beer can in her hand after the game. Oh my. I guess the arm-chair critics have never stepped foot into a high school weekend party in Anytown, Ontario or walked on the beach during spring break down south. These are the times I wince at the media's insistence on finding fault with anything that they perceive to be an ill towards society's accepted norms. Cripes, how's the view from the high-horse? Leave it alone. Don't bruise this achievement for those that deserve it most; the players.

I'm willing to bet, that tomorrow afternoon, whichever team wins the gold medal in the men's hockey final, that team will celebrate. They'll be laughing and cheering and hugging their coaches and teammates and posing for photos. Then the champagne will be uncorked and these grown men will chug a toast to their sensational win. It's a scene we've all witnessed before in numerous sports in countless different years. In the fall of 2007, I watched one of my favourite players from the Boston Red Sox dance in a drunken frenzy on the beer-soaked infield at Fenway Park, while wearing his boxer briefs and flip flops. Jonathan Paplebon is an eccentric, bubble-head but that season he was lights-out effective in the playoffs. When his team won the ALCS, he ran out onto the field and celebrated in front of a full stadium of fans, young and old, and they loved him for it. I didn't read or hear one criticism of his behaviour. Not one.

This is a double-standard and there's no getting around it. These female hockey players were criticized and scrutinized simply because they're women. That's it. There's no other reasonable explanation. Male athletes have celebrated their team achievements for generations. Women's hockey is still a relatively new sport, at the Olympic level. The novelty is still fresh, I suppose. I guess the stuffy old media just can't accept that women deserve to play hockey and excel at hockey, but heaven-forbid, they'd better not celebrate afterward. They had better quietly retreat to their dorm rooms and nod sweetly when a passerby congratulates them on the greatest night of their athletic lives.

I never thought I'd be on the same side as the Toronto Maple Leafs on an issue, but it appears that some of their players support the women's Olympic team's right to celebrate. Now THAT would be a novelty: a Toronto Maple Leafs' team celebrating a victory with champagne! As unlikely as that scenario may be - it hasn't happened in about 40 years and I can't see that trend changing any time soon - if the Buds ever do win Lord Stanley's cup, they had behave themselves afterward!