Fourteen Gold Medals and a Standing "O" for "Oh Canada"

During my first post-Olympic evening, while watching NBC's Nightly News, I was struck by Brian Williams' enthusiastic recap of two weeks spent covering the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.  Noticeably absent from his broadcast was the usual effusive praise of Team USA that one would expect from a reporter whose heartfelt patriotism manifestly knows no bounds.  In fact, in his Vancouver good-bye, Williams barely mentioned the success of the American athletes.  Instead, he provided a very gracious acknowledgement of the achievement of Canadian athletes, the host city, and the country in which it sits.  "That was unexpected," I thought, and for the past week, I've wondered why.

I have to admit to being a little surprised that a major American news broadcaster was so giving in his praise for Vancouver, Canada, and Canadians.  It's not that I think that we're undeserving of such praise.    Likewise, I never doubted that someone like Williams was capable of being so sincere in complementing his northern neighbour.  But while I was reveling in the success of my fellow Canadians, I somehow lost sight of the fact that citizens of other countries, while cheering on their own Olympic teams, also had their eye on Vancouver and our expansive Canada.  And as the Games came to a conclusion, it never occurred to me that they would congratulate Canadians as much as they did.

Take, for example, Tracee Hamilton, a sports columnist for The Washington Post.  She wrote a humourous account of the men's hockey finals that set the "gold standard" of all Winter Olympics.  "So this is why we've been seeing all these commercials urging us to mail our gold jewelry to God knows where for cash money," she exclaimed.  "Those darn Canadians have single-handedly engineered a worldwide shortage with their success at these Olympics."  Her column included a cheeky reference to the Canadian Olympic Committee's reorientation of its "Own the Podium" goal, reminding us that as the Committee discovered that we would not top the charts with medal wins, it "went back and counted all the fourth- and fifth-place finishes -- 23 -- then declared [that the Canadians] won the race for... fourth- and fifth-place finishes".  Touché.  But just as Hamilton didn't pull deserved punches, she didn't withhold an honest tribute as Canadians celebrated late into the night.  "Well done, Canada," she wrote.  "Now turn out the light."

Own the Podium was hardly the subject of derision, good-natured or otherwise, in an article written by Simon Hart of the UK's Telegraph.  To the delight of OTP's proponents (a group that includes yours truly), Hart advocated for a similarly-styled funding model for his own country by arguing that "[t]hose who shook their heads at the chutzpah of Canada's 'Own the Podium' programme should look at the final medals table and take note of the number 14 against Canada's name.  It was the largest gold medal tally by any country at a single Games in the history of the Winter Olympics. Now they own the table." Damn right.

Notwithstanding a carelessly written article by Gil Lebreton of Fort Worth's Star-Telegram (in which he compared the ubiquitous display of Canadian symbols in Vancouver to the prominent display of the Swastika at the Berlin Games in 1936), it wasn't difficult to find foreign reports that lauded Canadian hospitality during the Games.  It would be interesting to hear Lebreton's response to Stefan Nestler who, in Germany's Deutsch Welle, wrote that "[t]he world-class performances [of the Games] were not the only thing deserving of medals.  Just as impressive was the atmosphere at the host cities. Canada went above and beyond in its role as host as it celebrated together with its guests from around the world - which isn't hard to believe given that the host nation won more gold medals than any other country."

The effect of the Games in elevating our own Canadian spirit was equally the subject of international discussion as were our welcoming arms. The New York Times' John Branch, in his column covering our hockey victory, observed the effect of the Games on our national psyche in this way:

In many ways, these were the Olympics where Canadians, who consider themselves an understated lot, burst out of their modesty to become a unified, full-throated fan base. For two weeks during the Olympics, the streets of Vancouver were filled deep into the nights with people wearing “Canada” on their sleeves — and their chests, their faces and any other space that they could fill with expressions of national pride.

A Team Canada replica jersey practically became a national uniform. The national anthem became a party theme song among the generally convivial, noodle-legged celebrants. Fans draped themselves in the maple-leafed national flag. 

Such brash enthusiasm surprised even the Canadians.

Apparently, our enthusiasm was contagious. Patrick Barrett, a resident of Arlington, Virginia pleasantly noted that upon his return from Vancouver, he caught himself "walking through the halls of the U.S. government building" where he works, "whistling the Canadian national anthem.  Loudly." "I know I'm not the only American with this post-Olympics affliction," he wrote.  With our expressions of Canadian pride in mind, BBC blogger Ollie Williams, while writing about the significance of our gold medal victory in men's hockey, expressed his optimism that our patriotism would endure into the future . In his view, "Crosby supplied the Olympic moment, Canadians supplied the Olympic spirit. And that is all you need."

By simply referencing the positive reviews of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, one cannot argue that the Games wrapped up perfectly. Many columnists, including some of those quoted above, took note of setbacks, controversies and tragedies. Technical glitches, the weather, concerns of our alleged unfair hoarding of practice time, and safety complaints related to the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, featured well in the final observations of many analysts and commentators. Perhaps because of those setbacks, controversies and tragedies, it's worth noting that a world audience rose to its feet in applause when the Olympic curtain fell, in appreciation of our uniquely Canadian way of rising above adversity to host a near-perfect celebration of athleticism and international friendship.