1998-02-18
Black Eye for Canadian Athletes
CBC Radio just reported on a "visit" by Canadian Olympic athletes to a Japanese elementary school near Nagano. This event had been planned months ago and the school had been told that even Wayne Gretzsky and his wife might show up.
Well, the only people who showed up were a few Olympic Committee Functionaries and Atina Ford, an alternate on the Canadian Women's Curling team. The entire event became a dismal embarrassment to all concerned. The children had prepared elaborate gifts and ceremonies, and games designed to include the honored athletes. The teachers had brushed up on their English and arranged an assembly and invited parents.
Atina Ford saved the day to some extent. She is a teacher by profession, and she quickly gathered the children around her and got some games started and had the children laughing and clapping. The Japanese were exceedingly polite and gracious, but there was no hiding the crushing disappointment, especially among the staff of the school who had been preparing for the event for three weeks.
I surprised myself at how ashamed I felt about the behaviour of the Canadian athletes, far, far more ashamed than I did about Ross Rebagliati testing positive for marijuana. In the back of my mind, I think I understand how busy their lives are and how it must feel to have everyone clamoring for a piece of you all the time. But this story twists a knife in your guts. Maybe it's because we do know how busy our athletes are: signing endorsement contracts, going to parties, receiving congratulatory calls from the Prime Minister, posing for pictures, exchanging Olympic paraphernalia with other athletes, meeting with their agents, their trainers, their personal chef, or whatever... and none of them had a few moments to spare for a group of hopeful Japanese school children?
I just know that when our athletes find out about this humiliating situation, a number of them will step forward and immediately schedule a visit to the school as soon as possible. If they do, we'll know they really do have class, and all will be forgiven. If they don't, I know what my strongest memory of these Olympic games is going to be.
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What's all this blather about how beautiful and elegant and graceful the figure skaters are? As far as I'm concerned, Joan McCusker of the curling team is the only goddess on ice at these Olympic games.
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The Canadian men's hockey team is far more dominant than I think most people give them credit for. I'll go on record: they will stroll into the Gold Medal. Remember, you heard it here first.
March 8, 1998: Obviously, I was wrong. However, I will observe that Canada lost to the eventual champions, Czechoslovakia, by the slimmest of margins. Then they lost an embarrassment to the Fins, but did anybody really believe the Canadians cared deeply about the Bronze medal?
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The Canadian women's hockey team deserved to lose, but I wish they had won just so I wouldn't have had to watch the U.S. women actually sing their national anthem after receiving their medals. Don't they know that you're supposed to just move your lips up and down vaguely so, just in case anyone accused you of patriotism, you could always say you were mouthing the Lord's Prayer or just chewing gum instead?
Anyway, Women's hockey should not be an Olympic sport. There were only two countries in serious contention. It was a medal giveaway for the U.S. and Canada. Come back when there are at least six contenders.