What drought? You know, the one where Canada was the only country not to have won gold at its own games. Hadn’t you noticed the parched tongue of the nation? Hadn't you felt, these many years, the endless Canadian thirst that began at the Montreal Olympics and that was finally quenched when Alexandre Bilodeau won gold in Vancouver at the men’s Moguls. What? You haven’t! Shame on you.
I haven’t felt it either, but this kind of hyperbole is everywhere in the press. Canada seems to have invented a syndrome for itself, call it a flu—O3G0 (three Olympics with zero Golds)—and now it’s been cured. I don’t know anyone who actually felt the thirst or had the flu, but if you declare it loud and long enough, everyone starts thinking it must be real.
Canada is only too ready to believe reasons why it’s not worthy(see blog post of Feb. 13, 09). This "drought" was as good a reason as any to haul out so the nation could flog itself once again, but with the added bonus of having the potential to create more viewers: watch, as our national shame will be lifted right before your viewing eyes! Hallelujah…we once were lost, but now we’re found.
Canada Post, not to miss out on the occasion, is going to issue a stamp to commemorate the lifting of the burden. For the first time in its history, Canada Post is commemorating something on the day it occurred. That’s right, for the very first time in its history. Wow, that must have been one huge scarlet letter, one immense weight on the bent back of the nation. Never mind how Canada has treated its aboriginals, or the internment of the Japanese, we never earned gold at our own Olympics! Oh the shame, the despair.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to appreciate sport for what it is, to simply admire Alexandre Bilodeau’s excellence, and leave it at that?
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