Canada's Reece Howden, seen here winning a World Cup Ski Cross event in March, says he's 'more proud than I can express about being Canadian.'Pontus Lundahl/TT/The Associated Press
Canadian Olympic gold medalist Ted-Jan Bloemen didn’t come to Canada until he was in his late-20s. He was raised and competed in Holland.
He’s a good one to ask – what makes us different from everyone else?
“The one thing that stands out to me is how considerate you are towards each other,” Bloemen said on Thursday. “This was, for me, a big weakness – to perform in a team and be considerate of others. I grow myself because we grow together …” – as he says this part, Bloemen shrugs in a ‘Who knew?’ sort of way – “… That’s something I picked up from Canadian culture.”
In other countries, the Olympics is a two-week content dump. In a few of them, it’s a reminder (or anti-reminder) of their superpower status.
In Canada, it’s the time we get together to be pleased about being Canadian, while displacing that feeling on a few hundred athletes to avoid getting a big head about it.
But for the last little while – about since Vancouver – it’s been a tortured experience. Even the most benign forms of nationalism went badly out of fashion around 10 years ago. Since then, we are a country in search of a new way of selling beer.
But Canada’s making a comeback. That feeling you got at the 4 Nations in February will return in force in Milan. This time it will be hockey plus every other cold weather sport plus the world ganging up on our new, shared global villain, America.
You got a small sense of that in Montreal this week. That’s where they do the biannual pre-Olympic car wash. It’s dozens of athletes brought together in an airport hotel to promote an event that requires no promotion.
Their top job is not to say anything too wild or quotable. The last thing anyone needs is to stoke this fire before the cameras start rolling. That would be a criminal waste of content.
Despite repeated entreaties to say something provocative about America, no one would bite.
Still, it’s nice to see everyone back in ‘Hell ya Canada’ mode.
These ranged from Bloemen’s lovely testimony about the upside of tall-poppy syndrome to American-born, Canada-based figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s paean to the Unknown Fan.
“It’s the honour of my life being able to compete on behalf of so many strangers who are just blindly supporting [her partner] Maxime [Deschamps] and I, hoping we do our best,” she said. “I haven’t met any of these people who are hoping for us. There’s so much love, and I appreciate it so much, and feel so much gratitude.”
Stellato-Dudek choked up as she said it, prompting the cynics of mainstream media on hand (there were two of them) to get a little misty. Olympic athletes have a way to targeting you in the feels.
Or how about ski cross athlete Reece Howden’s description of what it’s like to be an Olympian: “You run into people you’ve never met, and it’s like you’ve been friends forever.”
Howden is about the size of a Toyota Tacoma. If I got stood beside him in the gate, I’d probably just surrender. But he was really working himself into figure skater territory when it came to Canada.
“I’m more proud than I can express about being Canadian,” he said. “I love this place.”
Or there’s ski jumper Abigail Strate gushing about the subscribers-only merchandise this country gives you access to.
“First of all, our flag is beautiful,” Strate said. “I think it’s one of the coolest ones out there.”
People may think this, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said out loud before. Is Canada’s flag as cool as, say, Japan’s? Only a graphic designer can say for sure, but we’re so worked up, we’ve decided that it is.
Every Olympics is great. Even the cursed COVID ones had their charms. You really felt like you were making a connection with the hazmat-suit-wearing lady in the hotel lobby who jabbed you up to your hippocampus every morning as a condition of your continued freedom. That was a real cultural exchange.
But the first winter Games of the New World Trade Order is going to be something. I’m not sure anyone in the national Olympic set-up has absorbed that yet.
By targeting us specifically, America has turned Canada into an international celebrity for the first time. People are actually interested in what’s happening here, instead of doing what they’d done for 50 years – pretending to care.
Since Canada is bad at bringing its main product (Canadians) to market, the Olympics will have to do that for us.
Everybody everywhere knows the story of the anthem booing. People who don’t care about hockey know we stuck it to them when it really mattered. And though we’ve gotten used to the new state of things over the last four months, the world will expect fresh drama.
Whether they intend to or not, our Olympians will provide it. The international media and broadcasters will make sure of it.
So now is the time to think about what message we would like to send once everyone’s tuned in. Is it forgiveness? Rapprochement? A ratcheting up of (non-violent) hostilities?
In other countries, politicians deliver the national agenda. In Canada, where no one can agree on which elected officials speak for all of us, athletes fill in. They set the tone. They deliver our unofficial responses.
There are two options for Milan.
Easygoing, just-happy-to-be-here Canada. Or the version envisioned by pro football player turned bobsledder Shaquille Murray-Lawrence: “When we’re on the field or the ice, it’s war.”
Based on very recent history, I suspect Canadians have taken the considerate approach, and would like to try out No. 2 for a change.