The Canadian media needs to CALM THE HELL DOWN

This morning I put on CBC news. It spent two minutes on the Toyota recalls, and then brought in an actual sports psychologist to spend a half an hour talking about what Sidney Crosby needs to do to beat Ovechkin in their Olympic death match. They brought up how hard it was to beat the US, and the following words were actually spoken -

"Well at least we'll always have curling." Implying, I guess, that somehow another loss to the US would mean they didn't have hockey anymore.

And on the one hand, I want to tell them that it shouldn't matter who wins what at the Olympics, they still have hockey because their country honestly loves it, north to south, east to west - the United States has hockey on what really amounts to a state-by-state basis. It would be a pride thing for them to win, bragging rights, but it would be about the sport. Most Americans (but probably not the ones reading this blog) don't care if the hockey team wins, just that they beat all the other countries in everything. The sport doesn't matter to them, the smug sense of satisfaction that they get by being reaffirmed of their overwhelming superiority above all other countries (especially the stupid, over-polite, maple-sucking, socialist lumberjack host nation) does. (Case in point.)

Maybe that'll happen. Maybe Canada will lose on home ice and go home ashamed, and maybe it'll even be to the US and we'll be terrible and very stereotypically United States about it. I'm not going to apologize for my country's team doing better in the tournament.

And I shouldn't have to, because the state of Canadian hockey isn't at risk here. Canada's not always going to win gold in the Olympics, because international competition is a recipe for sheer ridiculousness. And even if they don't even make it to the podium, they'll still be ahead of everybody for medals historically.

So if you're a Canadian and you're reading this, and your country walks away from these games with less than gold, don't let it destroy your existence. The winners will have their medals, yes, and four years of bragging rights, but you'll still have kids out in backyard rinks from the end of school until sundown. And if you're less disappointed that the team lost than you are damn sick and tired of your southern neighbor's superiority complex (which is what I actually think is going on here), then just come out and say that. If our government didn't bomb France for calling us out for being assholes, we're sure as hell not going to bomb you. You're on the same continent. We could contaminate our own water supply.



On the other hand, that comment was an underhanded slight at the US men's curling team, and I sort of want to smack that woman for making John Shuster cry.

(And as a disclaimer, I love Canada, and the game last week was a real conflict of interest for me. I don't know why I rant at four in the morning. I'm going to get ten comments on this calling me out for fallacies in my logic that quote papers on the politicizing of sporting events in international competition, and then Puck Daddy's going to link to me, and every time he does that somebody calls me a chach.)