Once there was a girl…
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All I can say is WOW.
Amazing game. I learned of the score via Twitter and frequent phone calls from my father while sitting in a VERY nice restaurant at the Bellagio in Vegas. I may have jumped up and screamed when the news came across about the gold…
Classy.
Good job Canada. You hosted a gracious event. The people came and they had fun. And you sent them all off while being smug with your Hockey gold, your record of most golds won, and giant inflatable beavers…
*sigh*
Way to perpetuate the stereotypes.
You have to read this post from Tremendous News. Brilliant. Like those mass forward emails, but with pictures! and more in-tune with my generation…
Save for the ‘Roll Up The Rim’ Tim Horton’s campaign I’ve either said or recognize these statements from my family. I missed the memo on winning from Timmys, must also be a product of the fact I NEVER go home during the winter unless it’s Christmas-time.
Also, you aren’t a fully formed adult unless you’ve sat through an episode of Mr. Dressup and get excited to see what he pulled out of his Tickle Trunk.
1. We Are Completely Comfortable With The Term “Homo Milk”.In Canada, this is an acceptable type of milk. I remember when someone asked my mom what type of milk she gave me as a child. I braced myself for a devastating mental image.
He loves homo.
Thanks, mom.
Because that’s not confusing.
2. We Correct You When You Say “Soda”.We’ll say, “you mean pop?”. And then creepily stare at you until you call it ‘pop’.
3. We Are Offended When You Ask Us If We Know A Friend Of Yours Who, Coincidentally, Also Lives In Canada.You’re from Canada? Do you know my friend Tom? He lives in Canada too.
Ever since Canada was invented, we’ve been asked this question. The American soldiers did this during the War of 1812.
Good war, dude. Good war. I think my buddy Jacques lives up in Canada. Vancouver or some shit. Tall guy, eyepiece? You probably know him.
4. We Don’t Think “Legalizing Marijuana” Is A Debate.I’ve never met a Canadian with another view on it.
Or I might have, but I was watching Garfield 2 while eating cookie dough.
Odie’s a bad ass.
5. We’ve All Rolled Up The Rim To Win.Ask any Canadian you know if they’ve ‘rolled up the rim’.
They’ll say yes.
It’s not naughty. It’s way lamer than that. It’s a contest that a coffee shop ..
Actually fuck it.
It’s naughty.
6. We’ve Been Jealous Of Someone Else’s Toboggan.A ‘toboggan’ is a nice wooden snow sled.
When I grew up, I had to go sledding using the lid of a garbage can.
So maybe this one’s just for me.
7. We Think ‘Beaver Tail’ Is Delicious.A beaver tail is a pastry, covered in syrup, ice cream, cream, and some fruit that we pick off it because it’s all gross and healthy.
8. Our Parents Have Tied Our Mittens Together With A String So We Don’t Lose Them.My mom would tie my “wool gloves” together and put them through my winter jacket so I didn’t lose them.
This seemed like a good idea.
But since they were pink and I was a freaking boy, mom I doubt they’d go unnoticed.
9. We Were Raised, In Part, By Mr. Dressup.I’m twenty-nine, so this might not be true of older Canadians. Or like, super hot college chicks who think I’m all old and gross now because they don’t know who Mr Dressup is.
Mr Dressup sawed through the hearts of many Canadian kids.
10. We Grow Playoff Beards. (Not The Women) (Hopefully)During hockey playoffs, players will not shave. So when they win the Stanley Cup, it looks like Hamas is playing for the New Jersey Devils.
For some bizarre reason, some fans who support the team, decide to grow beards too.
Don’t ask.
I look like I’m in Hamas even in the off season.
11. We Are Angry That We Can’t Watch The Same Commercials As Americans During The Superbowl.Instead of the cool commercials everyone talks about, we get “Tom Ford’s Nissan Dealership, Now Open In Bolton”.
Your name’s Tom Ford, douchebag.
Pick the right car company.
12. We Know Where To Get Good Poutine.Because it is the nectar of our people.
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For the last three, I asked some friends of Tremendous News for help. Here they are.
13. When We Hear “In The Five-hole” And “Spending Some Time In The Box”, We Don’t Think Dirty.It’s hockey. It’s pure. It’s our game.
Alex Ruiz, Calgary Flames TV.
14. We Give Directions Using Liquor Stores And Beer Stores As Geographical Benchmarks.Ok, you know the beer store at Jane and Dundas? Go east until you get to the liquor store then take a right.
Jeff Marek, Hockey Night In Canada Radio.
15. Canadians Never Think Anywhere Is Cold Outside Of CanadaWhaaaa? This isn’t cold. Winter of ‘94, my eyelids froze shut, and I still walked to school.
Nia Vardalos, Actress, Screenwriter, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, My Life In Ruins
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There you have it.
Send this to a Canadian friend to see how many of these things they can relate to.
You can follow me on Twitter here. Let me know if you have any friends in Canada.
I was probably jealous of their toboggans.
A few true statements…
Shayne Koyczan said this in his gorgeous spoken word piece:
and some say what defines us
is something as simple as please and thank you
and as for you’re welcome
well we say that too
Zack of Lost Angeles said:
the exact reason it is really hard to make fun of canadians. you are all so fucking likable.
I also had this conversation today in reference to the way I act at a hockey game:
S: Wait, so you’re that girl who always yells SHOOT THE PUCK!
A: I would never yell at someone to shoot the puck, unless I was on the ice and I thought the person on my team wasn’t doing their job.
A: I tell the goalie to get back in the crease because they make me nervous when they wander out into the ice…
A: And I encourage the defense to ‘get it out of there’
A: I will always applaud a good goal regardless of the team, and I stay seated during fights
S: Oh god, I wish you did sit by me at games
S: I have these puck bunnies who know nothing about hockey and think Sid skates for all 60 minutes
A: And they tell the guy with the puck who is BEHIND the net to shoot it… right?
S: OMG YES!!!!!!!!!
Politeness is in my blood. It was the way I was raised. I say please and thank you, I pick up other people’s trash, I tell people that they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe (unless you are deserving of the shame – Yes, I’m talking to you 6′ tall lady who cut in and ducked into the stall before me. I will let you walk into the bar with that TP trailing behind you… that’s called KARMA).
Now that doesn’t mean I can’t be rude or snarky. There is a time and place for everything and sometimes it comes out in full force. But I think Canadians really have a good idea of what it means to contribute to a civilized society. We’re old school like that…
Photo via @alex_ruiz
Now here’s where I make my point, as a whole we rejoice when we win and of course it stings when we lose. Just like any other group of people on earth…
What I don’t understand is that when the US won the hockey game last weekend how many went out of their way to be mean, snarky, and rude to those who lost. It’s very strange and foreign to me. I can say with certainty that if Canada won the game, we’d all say ‘WOW that was a great game’ and Canadians would raise their pint of beer to celebrate. I don’t think they’d spend the fun and amazing energy coming off of that game to make snide remarks about the Americans. Especially when it was such an all-out rocking game such as it was. We’d all just hold our breath and try to remember the excitement around us.
But that’s what sets us apart.
As Canadians, we celebrate the winner, we congratulate the loser on a game well played, we encourage those who tried, and extend a helping hand to those who fail. Of course, that isn’t always the case, but we’re gracious winners and hardly ever poor losers.
We may be ‘America’s hat’ but I sure as hell would rather be a nice hat than the mean person wearing it.
Here’s a beautifully written post from NPR on how NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is broken, my emphasis in bold and commentary at the bottom:
Let us put aside for a moment the rah-rah, “Go Team USA” focus of the NBC coverage that often bugs viewers who would like a more global view of the Olympics. Let us also set aside sport-specific beefs, like the way Scott Hamilton’s groaning has gotten completely out of hand when he’s calling figure skating, or the way the curling announcers make it sound like only a three-year-old wouldn’t know precisely how to win every single game with ease, because they certainly could.
The mere structure of the NBC coverage has left a great deal to be desired this time around, and it came to a head last night when they shuffled the much-anticipated USA-Canada hockey game off to MSNBC, in part to use NBC as a showcase for probably the least anticipated of the figure skating events: ice dancing. (Along with some speed skating, bobsled, and the men’s super-G, which happened earlier in the day — oh, and the much-hyped ski cross event.)
The basic problem with NBC’s coverage is that they haven’t improved the fundamentals of the coverage in spite of massive changes in the way people take in content. The prime-time coverage is largely as it’s always been: a few events (including figure skating) are heavily showcased, a few other events (most skiing and speed skating fall into this category) are usually shown in an abbreviated format regular viewers instantly recognize as “USA-Plus” (meaning you see the Americans, plus a few other people who are relevant because they either do very well or wipe out spectacularly), and two events — hockey and curling — are shown as complete events, but they’re shoved off to cable.
West-coast residents have been particularly incensed that they wait an additional three hours after the East coast gets whatever “live” coverage there actually is in prime time, even though they are in the time zone where the Olympics actually are. What this means is that even if NBC is showing “live” coverage of its big events in New York, which is across the continent from Vancouver, it delays them three hours for Seattle, which is less than three hours south of Vancouver.
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Because what NBC perceives to be the high-profile events are frequently shoved into the evening, the ones that happen earlier in the day are dealt a particular blow. This has particularly plagued some of the skiing events, where NBC chooses to sit on the tape of the events for hours and hours, during which time other news outlets inevitably report on them (see the recent discussion from the NPR ombudsman about why news organizations can’t really ignore news events just because somebody else is withholding the tape from viewers rather than airing it).
With the hockey game last night, everyone knew it was going to be an important game, and if you were anywhere near Twitter, you knew that it was whipping fans into an absolute frenzy. NBC eventually cut over to show about the last 30 seconds, but by then, the opportunity had been missed.
This just isn’t the way people follow … anything, really, at this point. At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you’d have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it’s a blatant fiction that everyone knows about.
Naturally, NBC wants to kick the big events into prime-time for ratings reasons, and it’s hard to argue with their ratings successes for these Olympics, which have been massive. Nevertheless, they’re clinging to a broadcast model that’s not only on its last legs — it’s on the last toe of the last leg. This isn’t Wide World Of Sports — people don’t want to wait around for when your big sports show happens to take place.
Self-scheduling is the rule, at this point. It’s harder and harder to tell people when they will watch things, and in what form. I can’t prove it, but my sense is that part of the reason so many of us have taken to watching curling is that you can see entire matches, without the break-ins from Costas and the cutaways to other sports.
There’s probably too much action in a set of Olympics for absolutely everything to be shown top-to-bottom, and perhaps that would be boring, anyway. But if the broadcast networks who cover this stuff don’t find a way to stop pretending it’s still 1976, where an event happens when the person who owns the broadcast rights tells you it happens, they’re going to wind up being left in the dust by whatever manipulator of technology figures out how to do it better.
via Linda Holmes of NPR’s Monkey See Blog
Head on over to the article and check out the 250+ who have weighed in on this opinion, some ice dancing fans have called foul, but I think we can all agree that showing highlights & commentary in prime time is still great, but they can’t lock down events when so much live-as-it-happens media coverage works against it. Not only do I have to fight the East-coaster bloggers/twitterers/facebookers, but I know so many Canadians watching their coverage live or in many cases are at the events themselves… I cannot avoid FREE live coverage even if I tried!
Show all the events live streaming on the internet (LIKE THE BEIJING OLYMPICS FORCRYINGOUTLOUD) give us all of the interest pieces, technical breakdowns, highlights of all the days events in a two hour special each night and leave us fans to decide which events we want to watch in full or which we’ll skip… I can honestly only watch so much cross country skiing before I get so tired from straining for the athletes and pass out..
As for live streaming online, it can be done with profit. Make us watch ads, but for the love of all things HOLY please add some variety! I watched the US Women’s Hockey team throw down against Sweden yesterday and nearly went postal after hearing the 10 second Budweiser clip at least 40 times (no joke) with some mind screwing breaks of it running 5+ times in a row.
Equivalent to Chinese Water Torture.
NBC, get with the program! Throw in 3 or 4 different sponsors at the usual intervals, heck you can even make them interactive so I have to click the link to continue the programming, as annoying as that is, I’d do it!
Yes there are people out there who don’t watch TV on the internet, nor do they use a DVR (my gram is a prime example: she is constantly asking if she needs to change the tape for the recordings we’ve been keeping) but I guarantee you the SMALL portion of your advertising dollars aimed at those folks are lost during the late night coverage at 12:30pm and 2am nor do retirees have expanded cable packages on their fixed incomes so they aren’t watching MSNBC coverage either.
Front load all of your prime time coverage with Centrum Silver & Prescription Benefits ads, throw all the Doritos and Bud (worst beer on the planet BTW) ads at the 20somethings watching your online feed and give your upscale additional coverage on MSNBC the Jag and Audi ads. Your viewers would be happy, your advertisers would be happy, and I wouldn’t be forced to stay up til 3 am every night trying to watch the rediculous late night coverage for a two minute downhill run I heard about from people at the event.
I sit in front of a computer 8+ hours a day. I space out doing my work by watching Hulu and I’d gladly be watching Olympic coverage during the day AS IT HAPPENS. I’d also go home from work, watch an hour or two of events on demand from your website, watch the primetime recap of events I didn’t track during the day and sleep like a baby at 10pm. That is Olympic bliss…
Ahh, today is the day of love and corporate Hallmark cheesiness… a few lessons can yet be learned. It is not too late. You can save yourself.
Step away from the chocolates and overpriced flowers. They’ll only lead to late night binge eating & depression when the flowers die.
And they will die.
Here is the most brilliant piece of wisdom about Valentine’s Day I’ve ever encountered courtesy of Zach from Lost Angeles (and Fight From Above!) I recommend you head over and read the WHOLE post, this excerpt gets just a little tiny bit of the point across…
The power of a corporate holiday is dangerous. It’s like the dark side of the force. When you are celebrating, it all just enhances the mood. I understand that on a day like this you can start to feel like you are in Denny’s on Christmas in Lincoln, Nebraska if you are single. Take it from me though, as someone who spent plenty of Valentine’s Days alone, it’s not that big of a deal.
Every day in a good relationship should be a celebration. If anything, VD (same initials as venereal disease, btw) is just an excuse to geek out a little bit with the person you love. That’s all. If you don’t love anyone, maybe kick it with someone you like. In the end of the day, just find a way to have a good time. It’s a fucking day. You don’t beat yourself up for not playing football on Super Bowl Sunday, do you? So don’t sweat this. You are the jam. I swear you are so much the jam that if I had any peanut butter and some bread, I’d make you into a big human-sized sandwich.
So all I want to do is stop you from making the mistake of having the big VD meal with the WRONG person. You will regret it. I promise. Call them now and back out. You got time still. Until you pick them up you got time. Stay home and watch the Olympics with other cool people. Take a drink every time there is a dumb joke about curling. Do what you gotta do.
Just listen to your buddy, Zack. Avoid the 150 dollar slow death we call the not-ready-for-VD-status-VD-dinner. You know what I am talking about. I love you all. Even you. Yeah, you.
via Lost Angeles
I love Valentines day, for all the wrong reasons. This year I get to spend it with some of my best friends in a place I love, probably making fun of dorky people holding hands and being romantic. Corn dogs and smuggled rum may or may not be involved… you never can tell.
And on that note I’ll leave you with these gems.
Events
