Closing Olympic Thoughts
High-fives celebrate all Canada’s achievements – not just men’s hockey
How fitting it was that Sidney Crosby, the highest-profiled member of Team Canada, scored the overtime winner to clinch the gold medal for the host country at the XXI Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
By firing the biggest goal for this country since his landlord Mario Lemieux clinched the 1987 Canada Cup, Crosby sent the nation into frenzied celebrations staged from BC all the way to his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia and beyond, and every town in between.
The win gave Canada not only its most coveted prize at the Olympics, but also its 14th gold medal, setting an all-time record for finishes atop the podium by one country in the Winter Games.
As one of several thousand participants of the joyful mayhem at Robson and Granville Street in Vancouver on Sunday, being among the collective euphoria of my fellow countrymen and women was truly intoxicating.
And yet, as I high-fived and embraced complete strangers waving their red and white flags, I couldn’t help but feel a sigh of relief – not necessarily just for the Steve Yzerman and the men’s hockey team – but for all 198 athletes of Team Canada.
For, if Zach Parise or any of his American teammates had been able to duplicate the magic in overtime that Parise did with 24 seconds left in regulation of that final game, all the ecstasy felt from Victoria, BC to Cape Spear, Newfoundland would have been tempered.
In that scenario, the baker’s dozen of gold medals would have still tied Canada with Norway and the former Soviet Union for the Winter Olympic benchmark. But far fewer people than who celebrated on Sunday would have noticed.
And that would have been a shame. For the traditional Olympic ideal has never been about NHL millionaires skating and shooting their way to glory, as hard-earned as their dollars may be, and as well-deserving as they are of their accomplishments.
Rather, the headliners of the Games should be the ones from Small-Town, I-Think-It’s-In-That-Province; those who are virtually anonymous for the other 3 years, 11 months and 2 weeks in between Olympics.
The Olympics should be about Ilderton, Ontario and its favourite son Scott Moir embracing his partner Tessa Virtue in a flawless ice dance skate that was superior in both its elegance and athleticism. Or, Virtue’s fellow London, Ont. native Christine Nesbitt shaking off the pressure of being favoured in the 1,000 metre event and delivering gold.
It’s about the humility of moguls specialist Alexandre Bilodeau, who knew as soon as he crossed the finish line in first place that he’d be forever immortalized in pub trivia contests as the answer to the question ‘who was the first Canadian to ever win an Olympic gold medal on home soil?’ Bilodeau was quick to downplay his own achievement, reminding everyone that more gold medals were to come, and each subsequent gold would be just as important.
And for every tear that you shed watching Bilodeau gather inspiration from his brother Frederic who has cerebral palsy, you gushed a thousand more when Joannie Rochette took to the ice just two days after her mother Therese died suddenly of a heart attack at age 55, just hours after arriving in Vancouver to watch her daughter skate.
No one would have faulted the younger Rochette had she withdrew from the competition. Instead, in one of the most courageous displays of resilience, Joannie skated her way to a bronze medal – which in the opinion of this author – was worth a magnitude more than its weight in gold. Rochette was named a co-winner of the Terry Fox Award for showing perseverance, and was also selected to carry Canada’s flag into BC Place for the closing ceremonies.
When I joined the several high-five gauntlets on the streets of Vancouver, there is no doubt that in my mind I was thinking “This one’s for Sid!” And Toews. And Weber. And of course, Luuuuuuuu.
But I also wondered if many of you same hosers were also thinking “This one’s for Maelle Ricker”. And Russell, Manitoba’s Jon Montgomery. And Summerside, PEI’s Heather Moyse. And Charles Hamelin and his girlfriend Marianne St. Gelais, who joined Kristina Groves as Canadian multiple-medalists at these Games.
Don’t get me wrong. If the NHL chooses to participate at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, I’ll be alongside all of you drinking my Tim Horton’s, and my Molson’s and wearing my red maple leaf crested sweater (it’s not a ‘jersey’, eh?)
But nor will I be disappointed if the plug is pulled on the league’s 12-year, four-Olympics project. Because, in that instance, the outlet for a men’s tournament featuring each country’s best-on-best players will simply be replaced by another World Cup, Canada Cup, or whatever name the organize choose to call it. Neither Lemieux’s goal nor Henderson’s famous winner at the 1972 Summit Series was scored in an Olympic tournament. I don’t recall feeling any less patriotic when watching the footage of those moments.
To Jasey-Jay Anderson, and Denny Morrison. To Kevin Martin, Maelle Ricker and (ahhhh) Ashleigh McIvor. I was just as happy for you as I was for Rick Nash, Scott Niedermayer, and Jarome Iginla.
I won’t forget about you after the NHL is back in full swing and the cameras stop focusing on you.
Hopefully, neither will the rest of the country.
***
Just One More Thing….
Undoubtedly the biggest non-story of the Games was the attention given to the celebration staged by the Canadian women’s hockey team following their victory in the gold medal game. Long after the patrons had left the Canada Hockey Place arena, the women indulged in cigars and alcohol on the same ice surface on which they had shutout the rival Americans 2-0.
In particular, some critics felt compelled to give a spanking to 18-year-old Marie-Philip Poulin – the heroine who spanked Canada’s opponents by scoring the only two goals of the game – for her participation, as she is one month below legal drinking age in British Columbia.
Of course, those raising the furor were curiously silent when Canadian skeleton racer Jon Montgomery punctuated his gold medal win a few days earlier by chugging from a pitcher of beer while walking through the streets of Whistler and smiling for the television cameras.
Hockey Canada officials could not have been faulted had they challenged the outcry by asking why a male athlete can drink in public without retribution, but women have their wrists slapped for similar consumptions within the privacy of a virtually deserted arena.
Nevertheless, the reaction to the women’s hockey team’s impromptu party led to a prompt, but unnecessary, apology from Hockey Canada, which said in a release “The team regrets that its gold medal celebration may have caused the IOC or COC any embarrassment.”
The statement of contrition reinforces Canada’s reputation as a sometimes overly-polite culture, often at the butt end of jokes such as “How do you get 50 Canadians to leave a swimming pool? Just ask them to get out of the pool.”
Rob Del Mundo is the author of
Blue And White Beat, and is a regular columnist at TMLfans.ca
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