Though it does me no favours, I've always felt positive about my inability to see the world in black and white. The Vancouver Olympics have come at an appalling cost, they've seen a shady purging of the homeless from the city's downtown, and the province is going to be paying for it until Whistler's beach front.
But I'm glad they're happening.
If you're from that black and white world, you support one of the following views:
1) The Olympic Games are a peaceful gathering of athletes from nations around the world to glorify sport, human accomplishment and peaceful competition.
2) The Olympic Games are an overpriced dog and pony show that've lost any of their original merits to the corporate whoring we see in 2010.
Boring grey me, I agree with both, but when push comes to luge I'm coming down on #1's side.
COST. Yeah, they're expensive, and when you think about the funds allocated to the Games that could've been put to other uses, that's where the first dissenters speak up. Funny that you never hear about protests outside the Academy Awards, which will cost more in a single night than any non-ceremony night's going to cost at these Games. How about the gargantuan cash-suck that is the Superbowl? I mean, not one of these athletes--'cept maybe a first place Canadian in the luge--is walking away from the Olympics a millionaire. The male hockey players compete in a league that sees them play eighty-two times inside of about eight months at a cost of sometimes several millions per player per season. And these young kids with four years of training are the villains?
THE ATHLETES. Every one of us has a skill set, a place to employ it, and once in a while--hopefully--a chance to be praised for it. These young sports spend most of their lives training and competing for a chance to gain international praise one day in a two-week event. Movie stars, country singers, friggin' Paris Hilton, a couple of juvenile delinquents at a C-train station all steal headlines with a decidedly lesser (or altogether lacking) talent collection. Olympic competitors train, fundraise, train, study, train, compete, and train for one chance to showcase themselves to the world. Many are just kids, most have dayjobs, and few are going to spend more than a decade in competition--that's two Olympics at best.
CAMARADERIE. In the majority of the events, the competitors are a big family--they spend most of the years leading up to a Games together. Most sports featured in an Olympics--especially the Winter incarnation--can't get decent viewership (or even airtime) for any tournament other than the big O. They're each other's biggest fans. Yeah, they all want that gold, but before that they just love what they do, and they show their support for anyone doing well at it. Watch the end of someone's run, the first to throw that athlete a high-five are the people he's just beaten.
PRIDE. My wife can't ski--bum knee. And yet, tonight she watched the women's moguls event on the edge of her seat, her emotional wave cresting when Canadian Kristi Richards fell, gathered herself up, and then took ridiculous air in a what-the-hell gesture aimed at pleasing the hometown crowd. Last night, when a crew of Canuck celebrities handed the Olympic flag to a group of mounties, who inadvertently punned themselves by putting' flag to pole, Joelle confessed she was near tears at how the sight did her patriotic heart good--all the while ignoring my anti-Anne Murray mutterings. It may be only one aspect of what I love about this country, but it's an important aspect. When you high-five some dude in a bar because you just watched a countryman mount the podium to hear your national anthem, when that one moment has made you agree with the dude's drunken declaration that "Canada fuggin' ROCKS, man!", well, what the hell's wrong with that? In a world of cynics and critics, it's good to feel good about something.
That in mind: THE EVENT. What's so wrong with spectacle, when it's a positive thing, when it's for the young who've spent years basically doing what every motivational poster in every classroom has always told them to do? Yup, it's expensive to put on, but some of us need a show once in a while, and I'll take this one over an over-hyped football game that's really just about nigh-pornographic Budweiser commercials or watching a movie star with a Grade 9 education miss-pronounce "myriad" in a rambling, narcissistic mess of an acceptance speech. There's a lot of crap in this weary world. Haiti's bleeding, we're at war, the ice caps are melting; dammit, if we put on a show that's supposed to bring out the best in a certain group of people, forgive me if I want to give myself over to something that makes me feel positive for a change.
HAYLEY. The small town of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan swells with parental joy each time Hayley Wickenheiser takes the ice. She's a queen in that town, and has been since the early 1990s. That woman creates pride, camaraderie and events everywhere she goes. She gives that little town--and hundreds of clone burghs across this country--something to join in a cheer over. When Hayley spoke the athlete's oath at the opening ceremonies, I took a mental tally of her accomplishments; substantial for just over thirty years of life. She started as a girl in a boy's sport, hearing that there was nowhere this game could take her. Instead she took it to unimagined heights, even when she had to act as Atlas more than once for the game she's made matter to the world. Got a six year old wondering how one person can matter? Cite Hayley.
(More on why Hayley matters: www.cbc.ca/olympics/vancouvernow/2010/02/what-a-great-friend.html)
I am often accused of possessing innocent naivete. I'm actually kinda proud of it, but I'm not ignorant to the criticisms these Games have received. I do believe they matter. An event like this can bring out something good, something pure, in our nation after earthquakes and wars and politicians giving themselves three-month holidays. For two weeks, amateur athletes can shine and the world will cheer and the only guns being fired over it will be at the starting lines.
Let's try to keep in mind that the eighteen year old kid who's using his ability didn't remove the homeless, whore us out to RBC and Coke or spend six billion on this thing.
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