What worked for Wayne Gretzky and Canadian hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics never quite fit the karmic ambitions of Canadian basketball officials nearly two decades later.
The sacred tradition of sneakily stashing a good-luck coin beneath the playing surface did not sound as good to those antsy officials as buying a complete basketball floor for its supposed mystical properties.
Gold medal triumphs for the Canadian men’s and women’s ice hockey teams in Salt Lake City in 2002 were forever linked to their so-called “lucky loonie” — secretly hidden under the ice. In a next-level spinoff this summer, when the Canadian men’s national basketball team tries to qualify for its first Olympics since the Sydney Games in 2000, it will play on the court upon which the Toronto Raptors in 2019 became the first team based outside the United States to win an NBA championship.