While spring has already started, let me get back to the Vancouver Olympic winter games. Toronto lost the summer games to Beijing, and Vancouver got the winter games as compensation. Basically, the winter games are held by a small club of winter countries that divide the medals among themselves, in sports like sludge, bobsled, and skeleton racing. For many nations sport is just entertainment, but for Canadians the games are an important national occasion. Their nationality is very different from the European one, where you wouldn’t see people singing the anthem in commercials.
As you can expect, organization was superb. The website was up a month before the games. They even dressed the cameramen white so they blend in the snow. The open ceremony was very professional, with lots of pyrotechnics, projected displays, and visual stories. Canadians don’t like to talk too much, they like to show. But they had to say something about Canada. Otherwise people would think everything occurs in the states. I can imagine them setting up a committee and thinking hard how to define Canada. From my experience, if you ask Canadians what makes them different from the states, the most common answer is "we've got public healthcare". Unfortunately, they knew that Obama was planning a healthcare reform which could eliminate the independent Canadian identity. They ended up with this speech, saying that Canada is more than a laundry list. They say please and thank you, and zed instead of zee. In simple words, Canada is the country of the people who need to define themselves.
One way Canadians define themselves is through their flag. They are really crazy about it. After all, there is no question it separate them from the states. There are even special stores where everything has the flag on it. I once went to buy me a backpack. The best one I found had a large print of the Canadian flag. I usually don’t by products with logos, but I thought it could be a nice souvenir from Canada. After a while I was wondering what are the chances to see a backpack with the Israeli flag in Israel, and who will buy it for everyday use. How many Israelis have the Israeli flag on their house like the Canadian flag of my neighbor? When I was in the states, a friend told me that one thing that drives Americans really crazy is to see the Canadian flag on their soil. Sorry Americans, I didn’t know.
Another way for Canadians to define themselves is through hockey. Hockey in Canada is like soccer in Brazil. Generally, Canadians prefer contactless sports, but hockey is different puck game. Just to give you an idea, in Orillia, a small town of about 30,000 people, there are about 10 hockey leagues. Each league has about 10 teams, with customs, referees, playoff games and everything. That means that on average each family has a hockey player. In Toronto, there is a football team whose ad says that in the price of a couple hockey tickets you can watch the Argonauts for the entire season. Until about 20 years ago soccer in Canada was considered a sport for sissies and girls. After all, even the goalie doesn’t wear a helmet. That attitude is slowly changing with the understanding that the world is not that interested in hockey, and there is much more money in soccer worldwide (or maybe people became more sissies). The problem is that they can’t change the weather, so they stick with hockey.
I watched the game against Norway. Hockey seems fairly simple, until you realize that one team skates backwards. They had professional commentators, analyzing player positions, coach decisions, game strategy, and what it all means for future games. I am not sure how fair it was to run NHL players against Norwegians, because it ended 8:0. Then came Russia. There are very few times of the year when the streets of Toronto are completely deserted. Even the homeless went somewhere to watch the game. Canada-Russia in hockey is a traditional cold war, somewhat like Brazil-Argentina in soccer. Russia was defeated, and Putin was upset. The gold-medal matches for men and women were against the USA. Canada-USA is always an asymmetric competition. When the Americans win, Canadians argue that the USA is much bigger and richer. When Canada wins, the Americans have no excuse. Before the games Obama and his spokesman made a bet against Canada. Watch the result.
I watched a TV interview with Prime Minister Harper, who is very knowledgeable in hockey and curling. He said that the current generation of Canadians is less fit than previous generations. He was hoping that the Olympic games will encourage kids to do more physical exercise. And I thought the whole point of the games was to sell more Coca-Cola. Maybe I was too naive.
