So much for the red mittens.
It took less than two weeks for Canadians to toss away those patriotic Olympic symbols for the regional boxing gloves that are far more characteristic of this country than what shows up during Winter Games and centennial celebrations.
It happened in, of all places, Ontario - the only province where the citizens are likely to identify themselves first as "Canadian" rather than Newfoundlander, Maritimer, Quebecker, Westerner, Albertan, West Coaster or Northerner.
It may simply be because human evolution has yet to produce a mouth that can comfortably pronounce "Ontarian."
The familiar fragmentation came innocently enough, when a rather obscure member of the provincial legislature, Bill Murdoch, happened to say to a gathering of farmers in his Lake Huron-area riding that they were up against a "Toronto mentality" when it came to dealing with pressing rural issues.
Better, he suggested, that Toronto become the 11th province so that those who live in Ontario outside city boundaries could deal with Toronto on equal footing rather than simply being dismissed as unimportant.
No sooner had Murdoch said this than he was being assailed as a "hick" in Toronto newspapers. And yet, believe it or not, the possibility of the Province of Toronto was once again in the air.
It has been seven years since lawyer Paul Lewin ran for mayor on a platform promising to "work to separate from Ontario and create the Province of Toronto."
So it is nothing new - only new that this time the suggestion came from the other side of the provincial coin, the rural dissenters.
Why the city would wish to downgrade from its status as "universe" is anyone's guess, but there it was - the Province of Toronto once again in the annoying chatter of those with nothing better to talk about. This column included.
The arguments in favour were newly laid out - a population five times that of Newfoundland and Labrador, an economic power to rival that of Alberta - and, almost instantly, the issue of equalization reared that ugly head that has increasingly become the face of regionalism.
Torontonians, it was claimed, were being cheated out of $11-billion a year in money that goes out in taxes to the various levels of government but does not come back.
This, of course, is the modern definition of equalization: We're all getting screwed equally.
Why, it was said in one publication, if Toronto got to keep that money and if it could levy its own taxes as a province, then the city could fairly compete with the likes of London and Paris. (This is not being made up.)
Some out in Murdoch Land said that the self-absorbed Toronto media had it all wrong, that the suggestion wasn't so much that Toronto go ahead and form its own province but that the rest of Ontario should "separate" from the provincial capital and run its own affairs its own way.
This, of course, is more in keeping with the national character - even the regional Ontario character. Northwestern Ontario has talked about leaving and maybe joining Manitoba, which it feels far more affinity for than Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe. Northern Ontario has often talked about separating from Southern and Southwestern Ontario.
Even Eastern Ontario has had its fling with leaving. A generation back, then National Capital Commission chairman Douglas Fullerton and former regional chairman Andy Haydon joined forces to suggest that the National Capital area - encompassing Ottawa, much of Eastern Ontario and parts of western Quebec - come together to form the 11th province. The two visionaries saw this unnamed new political entity as a sort of Washington, D.C.-plus. Nothing, of course, ever came from their suggestion.
Threats to go it on our own are as Canadian as rewriting and arguing about the anthem. Quebec separation has long been a simmering, at times blazing, political issue, but Western Canada has talked about separation, Newfoundland has talked about it.
There is even one area of the country that has gone its own way, at least symbolically: New Brunswick's "Republic of Madawaska," which flies its own flag and has its own president - who also happens to serve as the Mayor of Edmundston.
One can only presume that if the late Dan McKenzie, a Winnipeg member of Parliament back in the 1980s, had succeeded in his pitch to have Canada take over the Turks and Caicos, by now the islands would either be demanding their own provincial status or else threatening to separate - as they would by now have adopted Canadian values as well as Canadian currency.
It is hard to believe that back when the Fathers of Confederation were considering what on earth they might call this huge Dominion they were creating, one of the names being kicked around with "Canada" was "Tuponia."
That name, its sponsors maintained, would stand for "The United Provinces of North America."
It is not known whether anyone suggested it might one day look like a bit of an oxymoron.