So now the dust has settled after another World Junior Hockey championship which saw our boys finish fourth overall.

It wasn’t long after the final shot was taken when the “experts” hit the social media front and fired shots of their own at the teenagers wearing the maple leaf.

While most were encouraging and supportive of the players a select few decided it was proper fan etiquette to do a little finger pointing with the head coach and the goalie being the favourite targets.

Could Malcolm Subban have been better?

Absolutely, simply because in most years our goalie wins a game for us and many feel he didn’t so there you have it in a nutshell.

Was there a problem with the coaching?

Many think Steve Spott was outcoached and fell victim to the selection of players from the league he was more familiar with instead of getting the best no matter what junior loop they played in.

Maybe there is some truth to that but there surely was more to what went wrong this year with our junior team.

The cry went up quickly about the Canadian system being broken and a complete overhaul was suggested as the magic elixir which would cure all which ails the game in this country.

One suggestion was to have one coach for all the international teams competing against the rest of the world. Another thought was to send a club team over because of the chemistry the team would have in comparison to the squad selected weeks before the tournament.

The most interesting and controversial one I heard was how the root of the problem with our players is we make the high end club teams an elitist bunch.

The reasoning behind the suggestion was this system wouldn’t allow a player who might be a real talent to play because his family couldn’t afford it. I spoke with one parent who had two boys go through the system and he said it cost about $6,000 a year per child. That didn’t include the cash to travel, hotel bills and food on road trips.

I can’t say for certain if there is an issue or what the solution might be but it wouldn’t hurt for the people in charge of amateur hockey in our country to make an honest assessment of what we are doing right and correct the areas where we are lacking.

But hold off on the complete overhaul.

sports@reddeerexpress.com