The gold-medal game in the Olympics was just about everything that someone would want: skilled passing, shooting and goal-tending, a last-minute goal to send the game into overtime, and an athletic shot to end the game in sudden-death.
But I didn’t have a sense of national loss that I might have if the winning team had been from a Nordic country. As the teams lined up for their medals, and their names were announced, it was clearly a celebration of athletes who competed for their nation of origin, but who were making a living elsewhere. In several cases, players from the Canadian team were shipped in from a U.S.-based professional hockey team, and some of the U.S. team were cheered in Vancouver because they played professional hockey in Canada.
Does that make a difference? If you’re asking whether it was “wrong,” clearly not. If you’re asking whether it changed my attitude, I’d say that it did. I was cheering for the U.S. team to pull the upset, but when the medals were being handed out, I was proud of both teams.
It didn’t feel like “Canada versus America (U.S.).” It felt more like “Canerica” showing the world how we can compete with each other, but maintain our honor and dignity, even when we don’t “win.”
That happens in sports, and doesn’t happen often in politics or business.
I was reminded of that tonight, and I remembered why the Olympics remains important. I’m sorry that another Games has ended, and with it, the taste of what might be, in that mystical land of Canerica.
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