Monday, February 13, 2006

Sports Shorts

I'm keeping this post short because I'm... not in a thinking mood at the moment.

Perfect time for blogging, eh?

Anyway, as is tradition, the Olympics are on and taking up a good chunk of my time. No evening news. I even skipped 2 Canucks hockey games. All in order to cheer for my country. But I have a few problems:

1. I don't care if the Canadian women's hockey team has out-scored their opponents 28-0. They have standings based on a goal differential (goal for vs. goals against), so they need to obliterate their competition before facing their biggest opponent: Team USA. After 2 games, I'm already looking forward to next Sunday's gold medal final.
2. And from there, let's talk gold medals. 2 years ago, 4 years ago, 6 years ago, even 8 years ago, you would've heard me talk all about how important it is for Canadian athletes to just "show up." Y'know, show up and have fun and represent their country to the best of their abilities. Well, with the winter olympics being a better Canadian showing than the summer games ever are, AND couple with the 2010 games right here in Vancouver, I've changed my tune a bit with the current winter games in Turin/Torino.
I want to see Canadians win and defend those titles in 2010.
But I'm not seeing it happen so far. A gold medal favorite in speed skating wins a bronze. A gold medal favorite in cross country skiing makes the "top 10." The best a Canadian snowboarder can do in the half-pipe is 11th. Snowboarding! Half the frickin' country snowboards!! (the other half skis, but we haven't gotten to those sports yet). Otherwise, Canadians are placing in the top 40 or 50 and sometimes top 20. I don't want to see that this time around. Nagano in '98? Fine. Salt Lake City in '02? Alright, I guess. Torino in '06? No way. Vancouver in 2010? How big a failure will these games be if Canadians can't even place in some events?

Seriously. Look at the Australians in 2000 in Sydney. They rocked! Look at Los Angeles in 1984. Hello? Did another country besides the U.S. even win a medal that year?

OK, that's my rants.

Yes, I'm well aware that we're maybe 30 minutes from Day #3.

BUT.

Canada has 2 medals out of 36 handed out so far. Not. Good. Enough. Not this time around.

2 comments:

Madley said...

Wow, that's the most fired up I've heard a Canadian be since... like, EVER! So just for you -- GO CANADA, especially for HH and 2010!

Loved that rant. I keep inviting myself over to people's houses so I can catch the darn Olympics... this is when I really wish I had good TV reception...

Dreama said...

I was in the government car today, listening to the game in the parking lot of a high school...I cried when they won the gold today in a 4-1 game!