It was a moment to match the Canadian mens soccer team qualifying for the 2023 World Cup in the snows of Edmonton. Except that the Canadian men’s basketball team winning a bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup— while also qualifying for the 2024 Olympics in Paris— went virtually unwatched live in Canada.

Played in the middle of the North American night in stifling hot Indonesia and the Philippines the emotional Canadian games were mostly seen on replay, long after the team led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (31 points) and Dylan Brooks (38 points) had made history against the Americans. Beating even a depleted U.S. team marked just the first medal in a comparable tournament since 1936.

Their crowning moment came in the bronze-medal game early Sunday. Having led the game by four points with 4.2 seconds left, Canada saw Mikel Bridges pull the “deliberately missed foul shot” trick, fielding his rebound and sinking a three pointer to send it into OT. But Canada led extra time the whole way after to seal the win as Brooks, SGA, and R.J.Barrett confidently sank threes to build an unbreakable lead.

Missing stars Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins, Khem Birch, Trey Lyles, Oshae Brisset and young hotshots Andrew Nembhart, Bennedict Mathurin, Shaedon Sharpe, Leonard Miller and Kevin Pangos, new coach Jordi Fernandez saw both SGA and Brooks accept the challenge of keeping the team together after the loss to Brazil in the qualifying round and the loss to Serbia is the semifinals.

Some will say a bronze is nothing to get excited about. The Americans played with only nine men Sunday. Perhaps. But remember when Canada was jokingly called the bronze-medal country because of its unwillingness to be nasty and hardbitten enough to deny someone else the gold medal?

That handle was finally shattered by the men’s hockey trams in the ‘70s and ’80’s who cold-bloodedly swept all before them. They were soon followed by many athletes both male and female— like Donovan Bailey and Christine Sinclair— in a range of sports who defiantly captured gold and didn’t care who liked it. The feeling we got from Sunday’s bronze is that this tournament will be a great memory for all involved, but winning the Olympic gold is where it ends up.

Which leads to next summer when all the qualifying teams bring their best players— the U.S. was missing many top stars, Serbia was without two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic; Latvia was missing Kristaps Porzingis; France will likely be adding Victor Wembanyama and potentially Joel Embiid to the mix. Canada will also not be a secret after this tournament. Teams will prepare for them. `

That’s okay. In SGA’s smile there was a recognition that the time for hiding is done. In a sport that is notorious for trash talking, Dylan Brooks is willing to back up his mouth. Basketball Canada thinks it can go to Canada’s corporate sector wearing this bronze to get the resources it will need to support the team as it goes for gold. It’s a new day.

As we wrote in October of 2018 “While hockey still has a death grip on Canada’s No. 1 sport, basketball is growing in popularity. Among the factors are the economics of the game— it’s much less expensive than hockey for a family, the surge in new Canadian urban communities who have less tradition with hockey and, crucially, the risk factors of concussions that blight hockey, football and even soccer these days.

NBA scouts and NCAA head coaches now flock to Toronto’s Brampton suburb, hotbed for so many of the new stars, to look for the next superstar. Should the pipeline stay full, it would only be a matter of time till a star-laden Canadian team is playing against the Americans in the Olympic or World Cup Final.” Since then we’ve seen Montreal also emerge as a basketball hotbed with Mathurin and Dort as examples..

Coaching and Basketball Canada have been impediments in the past to attracting the best of the best. Jay Triano didn’t mesh with several young players in the past. Canada’s coach until recently was Nick Nurse, ex-coach of the Toronto Raptors. It was hoped his NBA title bonafides would help smooth egos of players and the trepidations of NBA managements that feared their stars would be hurt in the Canadian uniform.

But when he left this season to go to the Philadelphia 76ers the assignment fell to Spaniard Jordi Fernandez, who’s an associate head coach for the Sacramento Kings under Mike Brown. The NBA veterans on Canadas clearly listened to him in Asia, commanding respect in a league where reputations speak louder than words. And will Basketball Canada, often a dysfunctional body, smooth or hinder the path for the team playing a world away in Asia?

In July we wrote, “With the 2024 Paris Olympics on the horizon, qualifying should be the the least of their goals this month in Indonesia. Getting into the Top 5 would be a signal achievement. A medal? A dream more possible thanks to SGA and his pals.”

Mission accomplished. Bring on the Olympics.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Canada's Bronze Age: Showing The World Their Mettle