It’s a fragile thing, the Canadian ego.

For two weeks every four years, a G7 nation with a trillion-dollar economy and a reputation for level-headedness decides to peg its entire sense of self-worth to a group of twenty-somethings chasing a piece of vulcanized rubber. It’s a glitch in the national operating system. When the puck goes in, the country experiences a momentary surge of dopamine that masks every failing infrastructure project and housing crisis. When it doesn't? The crash is ugly.

We like to pretend hockey is a polite cultural exchange. It isn’t. It’s an expensive, high-stakes psychological burden that we’ve outsourced to the Olympic teams.

The math is getting harder to justify. Every Olympic cycle, the federal government funnels tens of millions into "Own the Podium," a high-performance funding model designed to ensure Canadians don’t have to feel "second best." In 2022, that meant nearly $30 million for winter sports alone. We’re paying for gold medals like they’re essential utilities. It’s a massive investment in a product that has a fifty-fifty chance of breaking your heart by Tuesday morning.

The tech hasn’t helped the anxiety. We used to experience these collective meltdowns through fuzzy CRT monitors and delayed radio broadcasts. Now, we have 4K feeds capturing every bead of sweat on a captain’s forehead in agonizing detail. We have betting apps integrated into the broadcast, turning national pride into a parlays-and-prop-bets nightmare. You aren't just watching your country win; you’re watching your rent money evaporate because a defenseman missed a rotation.

And then there’s the NHL friction. For years, the league’s participation in the Games has been a game of billionaire chicken. The owners hate the risk. They hate pausing a revenue-generating season so their star assets can get injured in a different jersey for no direct profit. The players, meanwhile, view the Olympics as the only stage that actually matters—a chance to escape the soul-crushing grind of an 82-game season for something that feels like a real legacy.

When the NHL pull-outs happen, like they did for PyeongChang and Beijing, the Canadian psyche enters a weird, defensive crouch. We start making excuses. We talk about the "purity" of the amateur game while secretly refreshing our feeds to see if the KHL guys are going to smoke our roster of university kids and European league veterans. It’s a specific kind of misery, knowing that your "best-on-best" identity is being held hostage by insurance premiums and broadcast rights disputes.

The women’s team is the only thing keeping the lights on. They’re the ones who actually deliver the goods with the regularity of a software update. They don't have the NHL's ego problems or the same bloated contracts, yet they carry the same weight of expectation. Every final against the Americans isn't just a game; it's a referendum on whether Canada still "owns" the sport. If the women lose, it’s a national tragedy. If they win, we treat it like a scheduled maintenance report. It’s a gross double standard, and we all know it.

We’re addicted to the stress. There’s no other way to explain why a country would collectively decide to wake up at 4:00 AM to watch a preliminary round game against a team that doesn't even have an indoor rink. We crave the validation that comes from being the best at the one thing the world allows us to be arrogant about.

But look at the cost. Beyond the "Own the Podium" millions, there’s the emotional toll of a country that can’t find consensus on healthcare, climate, or housing, but will collectively lose its mind over a goalie’s glove hand. It’s a strange way to run a society. We’ve built a national identity on a surface that’s designed to melt.

In a few months, the cycle starts again. The jerseys will be revealed, the pundits will argue over the fourth line, and the betting odds will fluctuate. We’ll all plug back into the machine, hoping for that gold-medal high to carry us through another winter.

What happens to the national mood if the ice finally gets too thin for everyone to stand on?