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Following Team USA’s 2-0 win over Canada in the gold medal game at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship on Tuesday, cameras caught the Americans releasing a big blue box with Hockey Canada logo and pose with.
Twitter immediately went mad after TSN’s Ryan Rishaug posted the photo and video, calling them classless and disrespectful.
But it was actually not a trash can. It was a barrel. Head coach Nate Leaman explained the Barrel before answering questions during his post-game press conference.
“It’s a story that when I was an assistant coach [with USA Hockey at world juniors] in 2007, [head coach] that Ron Ralston brought to our team. [The story is] on the crossing of the heart of the Sahara desert; cross a land 500 miles long, which more than 1300 people had perished and the only way to cross this part of the Sahara desert was to get out of the barrels so that when you hit a barrel the only thing you could see was the next barrel on the horizon.
“I shared the story with the guys before the tournament, and let them know we’re not going to talk about the gold medal. All we’re talking about is doing one barrel at a time. … It’s just awesome. It was a great way to get through this tough tournament, to only go one barrel at a time, to stay in the process and not get ahead of us- same.
“We had a barrel in the locker room and on the barrel was the next team we were playing at, and that’s all we wanted the guys to focus on: it’s the next barrel, that’s how we cross the desert.
“We took a selfie in the locker room around the barrel after each win and the boys loved it and couldn’t wait for the selfies. Each of our victories, we have our team around the barrel in the locker room. They had [caught up in the emotion] of the celebration and they wanted to put the barrel on ice.
“No disrespect to anyone, especially Canada who played a great game today and obviously had a great team. It’s not disrespecting them. I’m sure every team had something. in the tournament she rallied to and ours was the barrel. “
Leaman also took to Twitter to clarify the barrel.
Just to be transparent. It was barrel on the ice with our team after the game. It was the motivation for our team to take the tournament one game at a time. I’m sure every team had something motivated. The barrel was ours. No disrespect for Canada which is a great team.
– Nate Leaman (@CoachLeaman) January 6, 2021
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