Canada’s first medal-less day at Sochi 2014: does that throw off projections?

The era when a medal tided Canada over for a few days at the Winter Olympics is long past; now a day without a medal constitutes a drought.

A sneaking suspicion is that hockey — Sweden-Russia women's game, correct? — was probably a preoccupation for much of the country's sports likers. Meantime, Day 6 (or Day February 13, to use a Don Landry-ism) marked the first time at these Games that Canada did not pick up any medals. That did not happen until Day 8 AKA Day February 20 four years ago in Vancouver.

Two anticipated short-track medals evaporated faster than an investment with Stratton Oakmont. Speed skater Christine Nesbitt's season of frustration continued with a ninth in the women's 1,000 on the slow oval at Adler Arena. Canada also finished a heartbreaking fourth in the inaugural team relay.

"I died more than I've ever died in the 1,000," Nesbitt, who was initially in the silver medal position after clocking in at one minute 15.62 seconds but immediately told reporters that wouldn't hold up, told the CBC following her event. "I lost 2½ seconds between the first and second lap, that's uncustomary for me. It's been a really hard season."

But is it harsh reality time for the Maple Leaf, a time for a reappraisal of the whole situation? Somewhat. With 10 days to go in the Games, Canada might need its athletes to catch some breaks to reach medal projections set forth by both the Associated Press and The Canadian Press wire services.

For want of a crystal ball and due to being as inept with sophisticated analytics tools as I was with power tools when I worked summers for my dad many moons ago, the best approach is to put the AP and CP's sport-by-sport projections for Canada into one table. (See, Dad? Your klutzy left-handed son can too make a table.)

The former predicted podium finishes for each event, whereas CP took a lump sum prediction, i.e., five medals (out of eight events) in short track, two in hockey, two in curling and so forth. Some of those have already not panned out, but if you use the AP's projections, Canada still has a shot at that 30-medal milestone.

Please bear in mind that is based on the best-case scenario, which I haven't rigorously tested. The AP, just to do an after-the-fact cherry pick, projected Jennifer Jones' curling rink to win bronze and Brad Jacobs' bunch for the men's gold. The former is giving off more pebbled-iced imperialism so far in Sochi. Calling Canada for two alpine medals seems like a stretch seeing as our alpine team hasn't medalled in the past five Games. Prove us wrong, Jan Hudec. Prove us wrong.

Thirty-two medals seems on the high side. Beau Dure's Sports Myriad, which originally projected Canada for 30, had downgraded the country to 29 prior to Thursday's events.

Canada won 26 medals in the 86-event Olympics in Vancouver four years ago. Thanks to the IOC's imperative to get TV viewers to care about obscure ice-and-snow sports, of course, the Games keep expanding like the average North American waistline. Winning 30 in at the 98-event Sochi 2014 would work out the same proportionally as Vancouver.

Point being, there's little reason to radically scale down projections. There are always going to be some hyped-up hopefuls who don't come through and some surprises. It's not easy to cut through the vicarious vim and vigour that can overtake people around Olympics time. Rationally, Canada is essentially on course, but watching the Olympics and rationality seldom meet up.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.t