The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Canada produces the best athletes in the world that carry a stick and puck, but everything else, it's hit or miss.

I've read articles where, at the 2008 Olympic games, Canadian organizers are hoping for a "top 16" finish.

There's the cry of a champion.

In fairness, I think almost everyone doesn't think Canada to do all that well medal-wise in Beijing. Expectations are low, with only a couple of legitimate gold-medal contenders (contracts that to American swimmer Michael Phelps who's expected to win eight gold on his own) and the thought if a few athletes have a breakthrough showing (read: do better at their sport now then they ever have leading up to the big show) maybe Canada will do better than expected.

Is it time for Canada to change its attitude towards sports?

Everyone always points to funding the Canadian government DOESN'T provide. Almost every industrialized nation spends a healthy amount on their athletes but Canada is the red-headed step child in this area. The thinking behind it, from my understanding, is that spending on sports would cause spending on more important things like education and health care to slide. We have priorities, after all. But is this really true?

I mean, if you look at places like Australia, France, Great Britain...no one there has a problem getting access to health care and they have a good haul of medals so far. So why does Canada have to be different? The American NCAA system produces world class athletes at a phenomenal rate but at a sacrifice to affordable education for the average student, but as mentioned, this doesn't have to be the case here.

I'm sort of "meh" on the Olympics as many of you know. But maybe the main reason is that it's just hard to watch the athletes you're cheering on when you know there's little chance of them actually succeeding. Sure, some will say just being there is an accomplishment and you should be proud of the athletes regardless, fine.

But c'mon, there's a reason why they hand out medals at the end.