I'm not saying that US teams don't have high expectations attached to them. I'm not saying that's part of why it looks as bad as it does. But that doesn't change the fact that, in many cases, it IS as bad as it looks. The US losing to Canada in the World Baseball Classic is ridiculous. Jason Bay and Justin Morneau may be good baseball players, but they certainly shouldn't lead a team to victory against Roger Clemons, Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguex, Mark Texieira, Johnny Damon and Vernon Wells. Same with basketball--Dwayne Wade v. Lazaros Papadopoulous? That's a BAD loss, no matter how high expectations are. One of the key points of what I'm saying is that the US has high expectations because they've earned it in the past, especially in sports like baseball and basketball. They have high expectations because their teams have so much talent. Therefore, when they lose, with all that talent, and all that money, it's a BAD loss regardless.B. Stinson wrote:The expectations don't directly control a teams performance, but what I was getting at before is that it does control how good or bad those performances look. For example, you're picking apart the US trying to explain why they're playing the way they are - almost as if you expected different from them.
Basically what I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be arrogance or "America = Number 1" that's causing them to lose - it could simply be that they just aren't good enough to compete, and the high expectations of the fans are what's making that look like a shocker... which leads to them being placed under the microscope. That's why no one is talking about Slovakia or Belarus - no one is shocked by what they've done, despite them having a bad record.
When Belarus beat Sweden in the Olympics, they were heroes, the Swedes were denied entrance to their country. Why? Yes, expectations were high for the Swedes and they failed to live up to them. BUT, these expectations don't just materialize out of nowhere. The point is that US teams don't have an excuse not to live up to expectations in so many cases that when those teams fail, you have to ask yourself what's working behind the scenes. You can't POSSIBLY tell me that the US basketball and baseball teams in international tournaments lack the "talent to compete," so that argument doesn't really mean much. The only other answer that I can see is arrogance.
before catching myself and breaking into a little jig. 
But really I'm just glad to see that there is so much exciting young talent on both sides of the US/Canada equation.