As a Canadian, it’s been very easy to get sucked into the Vancouver Winter Games the past week and a half.
Not since my university professors went on strike during the Salt Lake City games in 2002 have I watched so many winter sports.
Olympic fever isn’t just confined to my living room either. Everywhere you go, there are Canadian flags waving, red and white mittens on every corner and the bars are packed with drunken short track speed skating fans. And I’m in Ontario – five provinces removed from the games themselves.
Even at my local grocer, the talk from the produce section to the dairy cooler is about the 2010 games. A quick trip to pick up some sandwich essentials Sunday found me in the chatty cashier’s lane and, of course, the hot topic of the day was the Canada vs. USA men’s hockey game.
And, following Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Americans, the talk about town – and the entire country – remains centered on the Canadian hockey team.
While the loss doesn’t eliminate Team Canada from the tournament (forcing them to play Germany in a play-in for a shot at Russia in the quarterfinals), you’d swear that Gretzky got traded all over again.
The long faces on the street, the stunned front-page headlines and the disappointed, long-winded cashiers at the grocery store, all can’t believe that our national sport (which is actually lacrosse by the way) is being stuffed down our boys’ throats by a nation that could care less about hockey and more about college football recruiting.
This reaction to Sunday's loss led me to the conclusion that, despite hosting the Olympic Games and currently sitting fourth in the medal count with nine (four gold), Vancouver 2010 will be a bust if the men’s hockey team fails to win gold on home soil.
Canadian athletes could be stomping the competition, much like the Americans, and still, if there was no gold in men’s hockey, the games would be considered a failure.
On the other hand, Canada could be without a single medal for the entire games and yet, if we managed to capture men’s hockey gold, in true Canadian fashion we’d state, “Well, at least we’re still the best at hockey”. And that would be more than enough for us.
Cheering for your country is great, and I’ll admit that I get goose bumps when Canada claims a medal in luge or snowboarding or speed skating. But I haven’t heard of at least 98 percent of our athletes and chances are most people have heard of less.
To me, it just feels like a touch of false patriotism. Like those guys who were New Orleans Saints fans all along but
you never found out about it until after the Super Bowl. Except, instead of every February, we have to wait four years to jump on the bandwagon after ignoring anything but hockey since the last Olympics.
Hey did you hear we won silver in the ladies’ 1500 metre speed skating Sunday? No, but I bet you could tell me everything Canada did wrong against the Americans.
Go Canada Go!