Certain elements in Britain seem to think the colonials continue to give a shit about what London thinks about anything.
another interesting write-up
Purely from the hockey part of the games, I have to disagree.
After the women’s gold medal game, there was large cheers and chants of USA, USA while the women received their medals. And the crowd from the elimination game between Norway and Switzerland was absolutely electric. Norway and Switzerland. Two countries that aren’t powerhouses but were playing great hockey and the Canadian fans were totally into it.
Also, if any Olympian ever deserved to be booed and heckled it was Dale Begg-Smith and even he received a nice applause.
Well, based on the quote, it sounds as though they think you’ve started behaving like us Americans. Y’know, trying to win and all that.
I guess…except in London in 2 years they’ll probably triple our medal count (Canada had 18 medals and Great Britain had 47 in China) so I’m still confused. It’s the Winter Olympics, we should be kicking some ass.
“Own the Podium” was a terrible phrase for Canada’s Winter Olympic development program. Sometimes it is not what you do, but how you go about doing it that causes difficulty.
Wow, he compared us Canadians to Nazis.
That’s totally excellent!
Where’s SmashTheState when you need him? 
I like the complaining about the number of tickets available vs. the Beijing games. That wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that there are 4 times the number of events at the Summer Games than at the Winter ones, would it? But there I go, getting all defensive with my “facts” and “numbers”.
Lord knows Britain is the essence of decorum when it comes to the sport they love, football.
Boy, that sure is diffferent than what I’ve been reading in the American press. Here, what I’ve been seeing are stories to the effect of: There were some glitches at the start, but overall the Vancouver games turned out great.
I think that the grumbling by the Brits and the Russians simply reveals that they are very nervous about their upcoming Summer and Winter games in 2012 and 2014.
It is understandable (but still poor form) that they would try to play down any success in Vancouver, as they are feeling a bit scared by the upcoming events in their own countries.
The games turned out great, thank goodness. I hope the sports results help everyone forget the appalling closing ceremonies.
Let’s not ascribe the reaction of a very few sports writers to their populations.
My bad. You are correct. Please substitute “some sports writers” for “they” in my statement.
Great Britain? It need only look to itself for being a near non-entity at most Winter Olympics. This year it did exceptionally well – one of it’s team won a gold in a sport for which Great Britain does not even have a full training course.
To put this in perspective, Great Britain’s top female ski racerhad to make a public appeal for a vehicle to get her to her World Cup races, and Snowsport GB is in receivership.
When a country (or group of countries in this case) can not provide a training venue, and can not even come up for gas money for its best athletes, it really should not complain about other nations doing well and being happy about doing well.
I wasn’t in Vancouver, but I can’t imagine that there was actual bad feelings about athletes from other countries, or exclusion. Yes, the cheers for the Canadians were MASSIVE; isn’t that normal for a host country? From what I heard on tv, it sounds like there was plenty of cheering to go around. I also can’t imagine that Vancouverites weren’t friendly and helpful to visitors - we invited the rest of the world here, after all.
From everything I’ve seen, it sounds like the games were huge fun, and I don’t have any problem with that. World party, baby!
I’m not much of an Olympics watcher, but I can assure you that I find the opening and closing ceremonies of any Olympics the least interesting thing possible. I’d rather watch a PBS pledge drive.
In proof of two negatives not necessarily making a positive, William Shatner did not break into not singing.
Which is, oddly enough, a point the article itself makes.