Canada finally has won some medals! Three in fact, 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze. I can't help the fact that I still don't care. Why should I care about some silly, self-absorbed "elite" athlete competing in events I don't care about? Well, I guess there is always nationalism or something.
I do not at all follow Silken's thoughts on this:
Back at home, Canada's collective hand-wringing over the lack of medals may be based on a mistaken belief that the country has a strong sports culture, said Silken Laumann, a three-time Olympic medallist. I can't at all subscribe to that inane school of thought. She is confusing sports with entertainment. Oh, and women's hockey is great too!
I am sorry, hockey, football, basketball etc are marketed and sold as entertainment, not sport. We do not watch NHL hockey to live the dream of some professional overpaid athlete, we watch it to be entertained. When we are not entertained, we stop watching. The professional leagues are very aware of the importance of entertainment value, you can tell this by each professional league tweaking the rules and game play over the years to create more entertainment value.
Am I wrong to feel this way? I don't think so.
2 comments:
I couldn't possibly care less about the Olympics and it makes me laugh my ass off when Olympic performance gets tied to our national identity and sense of patriotism. This country has done some amazing things in its relatively short history and none of them involved competing for little bits of metal in a bunch of overhyped competitions of dubious fairness. Perhaps if people in this country had a greater sense of our history and tradition they would gain a better sense of perspective.
Oh, and is it really surprising in our namby-pamby politically correct soccer-mom society in which excellence is discouraged for fear of hurting little Johnny's feelings because he's too fat, awkward or lazy to run that our athletes put in such a dismal performance? There's no such thing as first, second or third place boys and girls. Everyone's a winner!
I couldn't agree more! There's a difference between Entertainment and Sports.
Would I like to see more Canadians win medals? Sure, why not.
Do I really care that much if they don't? No, not really.
Do I want to spend more tax dollars on developing better Olympic teams? Not a bloody chance. We're already spending far too much on it. I work too damn hard to earn money to pay taxes to have it go to a few elite athletes. Not a wise use of my money.
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