Let’s review: four medals (one gold, two silver, one bronze) and the defeat of Russia in men’s hockey for the first time since Squaw Valley in 1960. The periodic table should be covered in red maple leafs right now: Au, Ag and Cu (for bronze I guess).
Let’s start with the ’10,000 pound elephant in the room’ (for you Bachelor fans) and take a look at Canada’s beatdown of the Communist menace last night at Canada Hockey Place. What a fantastic quarter-final for a Canadian hockey fan.
It was such a relaxing game to watch; it felt like we were playing Germany again. But, I do have to disagree with the pundits who are saying that Canada finally put a well-played game together against a worthy opponent.
To me, the self-appointed knowledge czar of the Winter Olympics, Canada played just as well as they did versus the United States last Sunday. The only difference: they actually put the puck in the net this time.
Plus, the US’s strength was defence and goaltending. Evidently, the Russians don’t have that problem. They couldn’t contain the Canadian attack and it didn’t help that Evgeni Nabokov treated each shot on net like the puck was sprinkled with anthrax.
To say Nabokov was shell-shocked would be an understatement. Did you see him on the bench after he got pulled? He just sat there with a dazed look on his face. Nabokov looked like a Haitian earthquake survivor who got rescued after spending a week buried under rubble: he was confused, disoriented and wasn’t sure where he was, but he was just happy to be out of harm’s way.
The Canadian women must have been inspired by my column yesterday as they took it upon themselves to force our nation up the medal standings.
Clara Hughes gave a tremendous performance in her competitive swan song in the 5000 metre long track race. She capped off a great career with her sixth Olympic medal (summer and winter combined). Not to be outdone, the lady short-trackers picked up some hardware in the 3000 metre relay, avenging the disappointing (thus far) performances by their male teammates.
But the real story was our surprising mastery of the women’s bobsleigh. I had no idea we even had teams in this discipline. We finished first and second, so I think it’s safe to say we owned the podium at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyes took gold, while Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown settled for silver.
I suppose the worst thing about the bobsleigh event was that the outcome was never in doubt. The margin of victory for Canada was 0.85 seconds which, ironically enough, is the same amount of time it takes me to have sex. While it doesn’t seem like a long time to most viewers (or my ladies), it’s like fifteen minutes in real time. So, the Canadians crushed the competition.
As a nation, we are poised to win the overall gold medal tally of these Games; we are currently tied with the US and Germany. And, honestly, isn’t that the way the winning nations should be decided?
Who gives a shit how many third place finishes the Americans have?
Who won the most events?
That is how you determine the most successful country of any competition.
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