As I glanced at the glum faces on the Team Canada bench Jan. 5 in Saskatchewan following the conclusion of the gold medal game at the 2009 World Junior Hockey Championships, one thought bounced through my mind.

As a nation have we now set ourselves up with the mindset that nothing less than gold is acceptable?

With five straight gold medal wins at the world junior finals, prior to Tuesday’s overtime loss to the U.S. you had to figure the bubble was going to burst sometime.

With the level of hockey talent on display around the world, I marvelled at the fact Canada had struck gold in five straight tournaments.

But the odds indicated the streak had to come to an end sometime.

It’s just too bad it had to happen on Canadian soil, in front of a crowd so poised to party, who probably felt nothing else was acceptable.

Have we gotten to the point where the Canadian hockey community figures a bunch of teenagers are losers, if they don’t bring home anything other than the colour gold?

If that’s the case, what does it say about our society as a whole?

My dad and my hockey coaches always told me you learn more from losing than you do from winning.

I dare say half of the players on the Team Canada roster probably wanted to toss those silver medals in the trash heap, once they were out of sight of the television cameras and the fans.

Especially Barrie Colts team member Stefan Della Rovere, who rode a wave of incredible excitement during Christmas 2008, when Canada claimed junior gold in Europe.

This defeat had to go down hard.

But all things are relevant.

Ask any of the Russians, Latvians or Swiss who came away with far less in Saskatchewan and no doubt they’d change places with the Canadians in a heartbeat.

For many of those on the Team Canada roster this will be the last time they will play together at a world junior final, an experience most of them would probably have surrendered just about anything for to be a part of.

For some 10 days, they were part of a level of excitement few will ever experience again during their lifetime.

Unfortunately most will dwell on the loss to the U.S. far longer than they should, in a world where hockey is a form of escape for most people, a distraction from issues far more personal and possibly life-threatening.

Something tells me in 40 or 50 years when they have grandchildren flocking all around them, those players will pull out those faded silver medals and talk about how they came within an inch of being the best in the world.

Somehow the pain won’t be as heartbreaking as it must seem now.

Time has a way of doing that with people.

The autopsy will be done on this world final, trying to explain away why Canada let gold slip away.

But instead of ramping up the post-mortem, how about celebrating the fact young Canadian men gave it their best shot and left their nation feeling proud.

If every sport is going to be measured by the yardstick that is gold, then I dare say we’ll all be disappointed and stressed a lot more often than we need to be.

So it wasn’t gold, big deal.

It still left me feeling excited about hockey in Canada and that’s how it should be.