Doan named Captain Canada.

And what a good choice.
In case you forgot, last year Shane Doan was wrapped up into a Parliamentary debate during the 2007 World Championships in Russia. To sum up the drama quickly, basically it was alleged that during a game in December 2005 Doan uttered anti-french comments. Nothing was ever proven as nothing was caught on mic and Doan was not reprimanded by the NHL. However the Canadian Parliament thought that perhaps this was something they should take into their own hands... two years later.

The Liberal Party, questioned (publicly) whether Shane Doan should be representing Canada as the captain, because of his anti-french sentiments. This despite the fact that nothing has ever been proven. (if you want to see some press from the time click here). I have a couple of thoughts about this whole ordeal.

First of all, Is it really the place of the Canadian federal government to dictate who and who cannot play for Hockey Canada (a completely independent body)? This would be like the government dictating the posting of someone to the Canadian Cancer Society or editor of a newspaper, or a president of a business. Basically think of anything that is ridiculous and that is the situation we've got here. If the federal government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, then it definitely doesn't have business in who gets to play for Team Canada.

Second, Don Cherry, love the guy, but he has blatantly voiced his opinions on french players... on national television. And not just any national network, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), which is publicly-owned television. In other words, tax payers pay Don Cherry. Now i'm not saying Parliament should be debating whether Don Cherry should be on tv, i'm saying the opposite. If Parliament isn't arguing about the merits of Don Cherry's view on the french then why are the talking about Doan?

And lets go back to that whole thing, nothing has been proven. Doesn't perpetuating that he said this stuff even though no one can prove it, go against a fundamental Canadian principle? You know, that little one, "innocent until proven guilty".

Most of all, this happened last year. The alleged "slur" occurred three years ago. I don't understand why this topic is still coming up. It distracted the team last year, and they still won, let's not play with fire here and try it again. Especially when the tournament is on our own soil. Go Canada Go.


And in a fun note, a friend of mine sent me this last night after Johan Franzen scored a hat-trick in the last Detroit Red Wings win. Franzen has been on fire since late February.