Lightfoot and the Olympics - Alive and Well

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." - Mark Twain

I'm trying not to let it get under my skin that the foreign press has been calling the Vancouver games the worst in Olympic history. Every minor glitch is being reported as disastrous. I really don't get it. Considering that a young athlete died in a trial run on the luge track on opening day, we've had a grim reminder of what really constitutes disaster so how a glitch in the zamboni or less than the desired amount of snow could be viewed as disastrous is quite beyond me.

It would also seem Canadian enthusiasm is getting under the skins of some people - particularly our friends south of the border. They think it is downright annoying that Canadians launched the "Own the Podium" program a few years ago in an effort to improve our rather sad record of winning medals. We're polite people in Canada. We're not supposed to care so much if we win, just that we got to play - oh please! Stephen Colbert from Fox TV's Colbert Report called Canadians "syrup-sucking ice holes" for denying American speed skaters practice time access to the Olympic Oval. In fact, no foreign athletes were denied access to the Oval but the U.S. team was asked to obey the ice rules in the Oval which they somehow thought should not apply to them. And in many quarters we are being criticized for being too strident in our celebration of the performance of our athletes. Since when is it a crime to cheer for your own team? On balance, I think people have been pretty gracious. There was a lot of cheering for the Slovakians at the first women's hockey team. The poor Slovakians were being so badly routed by the Canadian women that the Canadian crowd started to cheer for every good play and effort that the Slovakian team made. I doubt you would have seen that same graciousness from the home team crowd in Chicago.

I've loved the Olympics and I believe VANOC has done a great job. The city is beautiful. There have been no significant security problems and we've seen some wonderful, exciting performances from athletes around the world. The magic of the opening ceremony was not dampened for me by a hydraulic arm failure. As for the nay sayers, I'm not listening. I'm too busy sucking on the straw in my maple syrup slushie to really care.

On another note, last evening some twit posted a tweet on Twitter announcing the death of Canadian icon, Gordon Lightfoot. I doubt that Gordon Lightfoot was amused. This afternoon's news report confirmed that in fact Gordon is alive and well in Toronto, preparing for his next Canadian tour. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stephen Colbert was the twit.