Warp Scrammed

This is way off topic, but I wake up today with an elation hangover. It’s been an incredible ride, but the 2010 Winter Olympics are over. Yesterday we watched our Canadian men’s hockey team win the gold medal with a dramatic overtime goal that put the exclamation point on a success story that will be remembered for generations. While there were challenges – like uncooperative weather – a lot of effort and determination went in to putting on a successful 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Our Canadian Olympic team racked up a record 14 gold medals – no other team has ever won that many gold medals in a Winter Olympics. And at the same time, the USA team racked up a record 37 total medals.

Canadians have a reputation for not having a lot of national pride. I think we have reason to be proud today. I am proud of our Olympic team. They did what some thought they couldn’t do (but their fans believed they could). We’ve had a program in place leading up to these games called “Own the Podium”. It was a plan to train and prepare our athletes to be the best team at the games. The plan set a goal of winning the most medals, with numbers of 30 or more being predicted. While our team didn’t win the most, and was short of the target of 30, they did own the top rung of the podium.

Our team had a slow start. The first week we had some of our top-ranked athletes did not make the podium as expected. After that first week the critics in the media were already lining up to take shots at the Own the Podium program and some of the athletes supported by the program. They were premature. Some were saying that setting such lofty goals was unreasonable and unfair to the athletes. I disagree. The athletes at these games have set goals for themselves to win a medal. To be the best. Why should the whole team not set goals to be the best. Only 3 competitors can medal, the others will come up short. Do we tell the rest that they set unreasonable goals? No. We commend them (or we should) for going out there and putting it all on the line in pursuit of their goal. So I commend the Own the Podium program.

And the program was successful. We’re first in gold medals, and third in total medals. That’s a gold and a bronze in medal counts.

Congratulations to all our Canadian athletes, medalists and non-medalists. You have given us reason to be proud.

I say thank-you to all the athletes who participated in these games and left it all out there striving for one of those three medals. It’s your drive and determination, all the hours, days, months, and years of dedication and commitment to excel at your sport that makes games like these possible and successful.

Thanks to VANOC and the staff and volunteers who did the work to put on the events and make it all happen. How you plan and organize such an undertaking amazes me, including 25,000 volunteers. You did it!

And I say thank-you to all the fans who cheered for their respective teams, but especially to our Canadian fans who were behind our athletes through it all, who waved the flags and wore the colours. Who packed venues all across this country, and overseas as far as Afghanistan to watch and root for our athletes. Thanks for your unwavering support even when the media and pundits were cranking up the criticisms and questioning the commitment of some of our athletes and the effectiveness of “Own the Podium” that slow first week.

It was fabulous to see the fans in the stands and in other venues packed in tight to watch and cheer. At the final event yesterday, the gold medal game in men’s hockey, did you see the views of people packed standing shoulder to shoulder in venues from Robson Square to Whistler to Gretzky’s bar in Toronto, for three hours it took to play that game? I could feel their excitement through the TV in front of me. And to see the replays of the fan reaction when that winning goal went in – even with all the electronics and miles and time zones in between, you could feel the joy almost like you were there.

I felt such pride to hear our anthem sung, not in the ho-hum fashion you may hear at the start of a regular season hockey game, but with energy, vigour, and pride. Not just the 20,000 people at the arena for that final game, but at all the venues, and even the spontaneous renditions that broke out in the stands during the competitions. The athletes gave us the reason to cheer and sing, but the fans took it to the next level.

The fans Pwnd the Podium, too.

You know that bit that Canadians lack national pride? We just put that to bed. Permanently!