By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

ho says Swedes can’t play hard?
Mikael Samuelsson is
certainly proving that stereotype

wrong with his fiery level of play since Team
Sweden announced their Olympic roster.
Before the roster was revealed by
Swedish head coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson,
almost everyone considered Samuelsson to
be a lock. After all, he won gold with the
Swedes at the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin,
and then repeated the feat that summer when

he played a big role in helping Sweden to
gold at the World Championships. He was
brilliant in both competitions, but particularly
so at the Worlds, where he posted nine points
and four goals in eight games as one of the
team’s leaders.

He was unavailable for Sweden during
the next three years as he was busy helping
his Detroit Red Wings to deep NHL playoff
runs, culminating in a Stanley Cup victory in
2008 and another finals appearance last year.

So despite all that international and
NHL success, Samuelsson was left off of
Team Sweden for the 2010 Games? Why? A
prolonged 14-game goalless streak was cited
by many as the primary reason, but if that
was the case, then why was Fredrick Modin
included on the roster in his place? Modin
has missed pretty much the whole year and
has a grand total of one goal so far. Is that
Olympic worthy?

After getting cut from the team,
Samuelsson was obviously —and
 apsigsesss tne th off. He eloquently

 

20

Samuelsson sticks it to Sweden

“They can go fuck themselves,”
— Mikael Samuelsson, on the selection committee for Team Sweden

 

said that the Swedish officials responsible
for selecting the team could “Go fuck
themselves”, and that he wouldn’t be
interested in joining the team should an
injury open up a spot for him (although he
recently seemed to backtrack on that, saying
that he wouldn’t speculate on it if he was
asked).

Immediately after being notified that
his services weren’t needed for Sweden,
Samuelsson went on a tear that hasn’t
subsided yet, snapping his slump by posting
six goals and nine points in a ten game

stretch. He’s been playing with a heightened
level of intensity and in 49 games now has 16
goals, 17 assists for 33 points, and is proving
that Mike Gillis made a good investment in
signing the 33 year old to a three year, $7.5
million contract this summer.

While Samuelsson didn’t click with the
Sedin twins, which was what was expected
to happen when he joined the team, the
right winger has had no hesitancy to shoot
the puck, his 150 shots lead all Canucks,
and that’s with ice time that is far from the
highest for forwards on the team.

With all of this, Samuelsson has
played his way back into the Swedish
roster consideration, and Gustafsson might
be forced to put him on the team if Peter
Forsberg and a few others aren’t able to make
it back from injury in time for the start of
the Games. Both sides will have settle some
simmering differences to make that happen,
but if Samuelsson’s play is any indication, it
will have to happen sooner or later.

 

oot

 

Competitive eating

 

By Garth McLennan, Sports
Editor

hat does ESPN, and
up here TSN, put on
to fill space as cheap

programming at one or two o’clock in
the morning? Aside from things like
surfing and bowling, you also have a
pretty good chance of witnessing the
spectacle of competitive eating.

That’s right, competitive eating.
It may be more than one sports
network, but is it a sport? Let’s take
a look.

There’s clearly competition, as
the name suggests, in eating contests,
regardless of how unique it may be.
There’s a good measure of endurance
required, because, you know, shoving
all those hot dogs down your gullet
takes a lot focus not to vomit it all up.
That requires just as much toughness
and determination as the linebacker in
football, right?

And hey, those guys are true blue
athletes, aren’t they? Okay, that one is
more than a little hard to stretch into
credibility. I mean, it’s pretty hard to
match some 300 pound trucker with
three chins and ridiculously wide gut

up against a Floyd Mayweather ora
Derek Jeter.

Now, I know that for the few
competitive eating fans out there (let’s
be honest though, how many can
there be?), there is the argument that
the eaters, no matter how heavy they
may be, have to go through rigorous
training to get there bodies in shape
to accept that much food. To be fair,
there is probably some merit to that.
It is most likely very true that the
average person couldn’t consume half
of what those guys do in one sitting.
However, while it may be extremely
difficult to take in that much food,
that doesn’t make it an athletic
accomplishment.

THE VERDICT:

Just because something is hard
doesn’t mean it’s a sport. Acing a
math test it exceedingly tough, but it
is isn’t an achievement in athletics.
The same goes for mastering cooking
or fixing a computer. Being able to
eat a ton of food very quickly may
be classified as a skill, just like those
other things, but it sure as hell isn’t a
sport.