OTTAWA | Less than 24 hours after another failure for Junior Team Canada, one question remains: whose fault is it?
All of Canada is still wondering what happened. How could a program of excellence like that of Hockey Canada be completely eliminated from the World Junior picture after the quarter-finals… two years in a row?
For 24 hours, and even longer, criticism has been coming from all sides about the work of head coach Dave Cameron as well as the decision-making staff and his player choices.
“I wouldn’t change anything”
On Friday, Hockey Canada’s Head of Programs of Excellence, Scott Salmond, Head Scout of the Under-20 team, Al Murray, and the team’s General Manager, Peter Anholt, met with the media .
And you have to give it to them, they braved the storm. In front of around fifteen journalists looking for answers, they answered all the questions, without shying away.
Scott Salmond was flanked by Al Murray (left) and Peter Anholt (right). – Photo KEVIN DUBÉ
Obviously, many questions have been asked about Dave Cameron’s work, as well as how the roster was constructed.
And in the eyes of the leaders, this is not what went wrong. If they had to do it again, they would do the same thing.
“I wouldn’t change anything about our roster or the personnel we had. We had a very good group, with character,” said Anholt who, a few minutes earlier, had assured that he was in agreement with all the decisions made by Cameron and his coaching staff during the tournament.
But… whose fault is it?
So we come back to the original question: whose fault is it?
This question was first asked of Anholt who, after an unconvincing answer, gave way to Salmond.
“Who to blame? You can blame me. If you think the problem was our scouts, I’m the one hiring them. If you think it’s the coach, I’m the one who hires him. So you want to blame someone, you can blame me, he said, with fire in his eyes. It’s part of our job. We want to win, and no one wants it more than the players and all the people in this room, no one. There were no political or emotional decisions taken. These are calculated decisions, based on winning. And sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t.”
Cameron does not score a goal
The big boss of the program of excellence, however, wanted to reiterate his confidence in Dave Cameron as well as his decision to make him the head coach of the team.
“Dave’s job is difficult. From the first day of camp, we had an identity and a way of playing. I think Dave held tight to that identity, and he pushed the players and challenged them. At the end of the day, it’s not Dave who scores goals. His job is to put players in a position to do that, and I believe he did it,” he added, in turn putting some of the blame on the players.
And why not practice?
One of the criticisms made against Cameron during the tournament is the fact that ÉCJ did not train at any time since the first match of the competition, on December 26. On Thursday, after the team was eliminated, the pilot justified the decision by mentioning that the players were “exhausted.”
“These are decisions we make as a team,” Anholt explained.
Confronted subsequently by a colleague who asked him if, precisely, given the obvious lack of chemistry of this formation, it would not have been preferable to skate a little more between games, the hockey man went there a surprising answer to say the least.
“That’s not how it works,” he said.
