More Like CANTada

Picture this. The 2010 Academy Awards.

It’s now time to announce Best Picture.

(I know this isn’t even close to being accurate, but I’m building a scenario, so just roll with me here.)

You’re nominees are between:

The Hurt Locker

and

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

And the winner for best picture is…

Paul Blart: Mall Cop!

I’m sorry what?! Paul Blart is the movie that may have single handedly destroyed Kevin James’ career an OK film, but best picture? How did it beat out The Hurt Locker?!

How about the 2010 Grammys?

I know they already happened, but imagine Taylor Swift getting beat by Nelly Furtado for Album of the Year. Or imagine Doug Pitt being cast in a movie over his brother Brad. Or heck, imagine Danica Patrick actually winning a race amongst a field of boys in either the Indy Racing League or NASCAR.

All of these are prime examples of what happened on Sunday night. Let’s continue…

America, to me, a biased Native American (I say that with the intention that I was born and raised in America so therefore, I am a native of this country), is the best country in the world! Bias much? Yes, please. And I’ll actually have some more.

America can and will beat any country in anything. With the exception of electronics to Japan, population to China, wars to Vietnam (too soon?), burritos to Mexico, hosting the Olympics in 2016 to Brazil, bad dental hygiene to England, drunk people to Ireland, 2009 Best Picture Oscar Winners to India, baseball to the Dominican Republic, spaghetti to Italy, hot blond girls to Sweden, Brendan Fraser movies to Egypt, and I’m just going to end it here. But aside from all that, America is the best country this planet has ever seen. Well, ever since Pangea, when this planet was just a melting pot of awesomeness.

So it’s safe to say that America is by and large better than Canada in ever way, shape, and form.

Well, better in every area but two: Hockey and number of Mounties.

While the latter is completely and utterly irrelevant, hockey is not. Well, not to them, anyway.

In case you haven’t noticed, hockey isn’t that big of a deal in this country. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE hockey. I love to watch it, but ever since NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman drove the league into the ground by not renewing it’s television contract with ESPN, the league has been struggling. Nearly everyone in America lost interest in something they never fully had interest in to begin with. The NHL has really struggled in recent years, especially compared to the NFL, College Football, NBA, MLB, and even NASCAR. The love for hockey in this country has only been upkept by those with teams in their city, those select diehard fans, and, of course, Canadians.

What food is to America, hockey is to Canada.

Their lives revolve around it. So it wasn’t very surprising when Canada came into this years Winter Olympics with all of their focus on winning the gold medal in hockey. They can still achieve this goal, but doing so will require a lot more effort than they ever imagined. They had to win a play-in game against Germany last night just to make it to the quarterfinals.

The reason they are in this bind to begin with is because of one game. Allow me to set the stage.

Sunday night, 7:45 Eastern Time (Or GameTime in Canada Time), the puck was dropped for the border war of all border wars (no offense, Korea).

The game started off with a thrill, when only 41 seconds into the game, Brian Rafalski scored to put America up 1-0. Canada would tie it up minutes later, only to see America regain the lead 22 seconds later. Team USA ended up winning 5-3, after the whole night just seemed to belong to America. Much like how the whole sport belongs to America, also.

Canada may be saying, “This was only one game!” or “Try and beat us on our home ice again!” They can argue this all they want. That’s fine, but let’s dig deeper into the overall sport. Where are the NHL headquarters located? New York City, New York, America! Where are Gordon Bombay’s Mighty Ducks from? Oh yeah, AMERICA! What about that team who beat the New York Rangers from that small town known as Mystery? Where is Mystery again? Oh that’s right, it’s in ALASKA! Where is Alaska? IN AMERICA! Where are NHL pucks made? Canada. But if they had brains and could think for themselves, where would they WANT to be made? AMERICA!

Let’s face it, the tides in the sport of hockey are turning. And the funniest thing is, no one in America cares. I wish they did, but you can’t deny it. We are more hung up on NFL Draft coverage (even though we are over 2 months away) than we are the fact that our hockey team pulled off the second best upset in Winter Olympics history. This upset coming only one day short of the 30th Anniversary of the greatest upset in the history of the Winter Games. You know the USA Team that was coached by Kurt Russell.

Imagine Canada beating America in football. That’s what their country is going through right now. And to think, this humiliating loss came on THEIR home ice during the Winter Olympics that they are failing to host successfully. To Canada it’s more like LOSEter Olympics!

In conclusion Canada, I know we have had our differences. I know you have been called a lot of names by us throughout the years. Names like “America’s Hat”, “Our 51st State”, “That Country Up North”, “The Eh People”, “America’s Lice”, “Crazy Canucks”, “The Doug Fluties”, “Maple Smokers”, and “American Jr.’s”, but we want to set that all aside. Please forgive us for belittling you much to the tune that Clarissa Darling used to belittle her younger red headed brother, Ferguson. Let’s just drop it. Forget it. We don’t need that anymore.

Because, Canada,

WE NOW HAVE HOCKEY!