World class, eh? but what a world

There's a joke about a man who meets an old friend on the street. He notices that his friend is doing well. He has a new suit on and a fresh haircut. He looks healthy and happy.

“How are you?” he asks his friend.

The friend tells him that things are great. His business is booming. His kids are at the top of their class. His wife is doing well.

“I hate to brag but I'm really at the top of the world,” the friend says.

“Don't worry,” says the first man, “it won't last”.

A lot of Canadians felt pretty good when Crosby scored his goal on Sunday afternoon. We were on top of the world. The humiliations of the early days of the Olympic games were behind us. All of the rain, the logistical problems, the tragic death of a Georgian athlete on the track that we had built, had been overcome. The self-inflicted humiliation of the “Own the Podium” branding fiasco and the overwrought nationalism that it engendered was mercifully behind us.

During the second week of the games, coincidentally just after the Canadian Olympic Committee President had acknowledge that Canada would not be the leading medal winner, everything turned around.

The people of Vancouver had already realized that winning was not the same thing as hosting, and they had been giving everyone a really good time. Even the British media, which had been pounding the games with gusto in their headlines, began to talk about how much fun they were having.

And lo and behold, within hours of effectively putting and end to the hollow “Own the Podium” promise, Canadian ice dancers Virtue and Moir won gold, and the emotional Joannie Rochette story started to play itself out. Santa Clara Hughes won another bronze in speed skating, her fifth medal in four Olympics, winter and summer. When asked about “Own the Podium” she said the funding part has been fine, but as for the hype about medal counts, she didn't pay any attention to that sort of thing. “It's all about skating the perfect race,” she said, “I did that today.”

Perfect races and perfect games followed in succession. The women's hockey team won it all; the women's two-man bobsledders (I think that's what they call it) took gold and silver; there was the Charles Hamelin – Marianne St. Gelais love story on ice; and the heartbreaking silver for curler Cheryl Bernard against that most implacable of Swedes. Then Jasey Jay Anderson won gold in snowboard slalom after 12 years of disappointment, in front of his young children. And there were other heroic stories being told as well on the snow and ice.

All in all this was rich, heady stuff. There was a growing feeling that Canada had found its groove during the second half of these games. We were winning by not worrying about winning. We were shining on our own world stage.

Of course, most of us, the vast majority of us, had done nothing more than turn on the television and watch, but don't forget we are sponsoring the party through our tax bills.

All this was well and good. Until Sunday afternoon. Ultimately it was the men's hockey game that was going to tell the tale. And we all know that it went exactly as planned. It couldn't have been scripted better. The team got off to a good start. There was a feeling of invincibility when the score hit 2-0, only for it all to slowly slip away as the team began playing not to lose. Then it looked like we were going to get away with a 2-1 lead in the dying seconds. And then the Yankees tied it up.

Nerve-wracking overtime followed, and finally Sid (the kid) Crosby, who had done nothing for three games, won the game in brilliant fashion. Wow! Who wouldn't want to be Canadian after that?

We knew the elation couldn't last, but it might have been able to slowly ebb away over time. There were still the closing ceremonies to follow, and who could have predicted that a mere footnote to the games would be our collective undoing?

The ceremonies started well enough by making fun of the embarrassing “hydraulic malfunction” of the opening ceremonies that had so thrilled the British press. This set a good tone. It was a little touch of our famous self-deprecating humour.

Then came the schlocky music, the endless Mountie uniforms, the moose antlers, the giant air balloon beaver. This was not good.

Then William Shatner took the stage, and that proud Canadian bubble finally burst completely. Somehow, someone had decided that the former Captain

Kirk could exemplify our country to us. This was a humiliation.

He was followed by Catherine O'Hara, who talked about peeing in the snow. Avril Lavigne and Alannis Morrisette were thrown in for good measure.

You get the picture.

I shouldn't be so hard on the people who put the closing 'show' together, because they were actually doing us all a favour. It did us some good to fall back from that feeling of pride and well-being quickly and dramatically.

Otherwise the banality of our daily lives: our dreary Parliament and its voices of fiscal doom (Harper, Ignatieff and Flaherty – remember them); the fact that it is March 1 and we should have already started seeds for the garden but haven't; the sap is running and our buckets and lines are not out because we’ve been glued to our TV sets; the RRSP deadline has passed us by once again and taxes are due in eight weeks - these things can be downright depressing if you aren't already in the dumps.

It's nice to get back to normal.