If Canada isn’t the greatest country in the world, it certainly is one of the most versatile.
We have everything up here: snow-capped mountains, lush green valleys, forest, ocean, field and stream; and that’s just British Columbia.
Canada is affectionately known as the Great White North. Great yes, north certainly, but white? Not British Columbia. For a province hosting the Winter Olympics, B.C. has fallen awfully short on the white stuff.
It was the warmest January on record out there, with warm breezes over the patio, and green grass growing where the snow should be. It left our Olympic organizers scratching their heads, and scrambling to put snow in places where mother nature failed to.
Canada is unique when it comes to the Olympics, being the only host nation never to win a gold medal at their own Games. We didn’t do it in Montreal in 1976, and we missed the mark in Calgary in 1988.
Elizabeth Manley did win figure skating silver on her home soil, which would have been gold under today’s system, but that doesn’t really count.
What counts is that we may be better known from now on as the only nation to host a Winter Games without actually having any winter.
Whistler is neck deep in snow, and our east coast has been digging out from under blankets of it for weeks, but Vancouver has hardly seen a flake; unless you count all the hemp-heads plotting protests in downtown coffee shops.
The solution has been to create a winter wonderland where one did not exist. Work crews have been making and moving snow like maniacs for the past month, proving you don’t even need winter to enjoy a Winter Games.
If I were Australia, Brazil or Borneo, I would be making a bid to host the next available Winter Olympics. All you need is a hill or two, some snowmaking equipment, a few helicopters and dump trucks, and an air conditioning unit big enough to handle the job.
Imagine how much fun it would be to watch an alpine or nordic ski team skimming along a ribbon of snow, surrounded by sand, sun, pineapples and rum. What a sight it would be to ski jump over palm trees, snowboard down an orchid-lined half pipe, or bobsled through the banana patch.
Because it would be warm, athletes wouldn’t need hats, mitts, or any skin-tight racing suits either. They could dress more like Olympic swimmers or beach volleyball players, skin gleaming with sunscreen. The ratings for a Games like that would be incredible.
Until then, however, we have Vancouver, and a renewed push to claim a gold medal. Hopefully, by the time you read this, Canada will have already mined gold. Believe.