How About That Canadian Spirit?

[kcin94]

That article was rediculous. Comparing the amount of ticket we released to China? Comparing Summer and Winter Olympics? That's like comparing the number of people going to a high school football game to the superbowl.

Calling the canadian's callous for not wanting the track shortened. I guess he didn't look up American Tony Benshoof, who didn't want it shortened either.

He mentioned all the Texan's who won medals (as he should, he's a reporter from Texas) but failed to mention the slovania skiier who broke her ribs, and still managed to start and win bronze in her next race. The ovation as she needed help up onto the podium was great. She got an award from us, she got snubbed in this article.

[kcin94]

That being said, and the article written was rediculous, if you read some of his other articles at that paper, they don't always focus on the Americans (there was a good article about Virtue and Moir)

[PigSkin_53]

Somebody please....pull the plug on the British media!

If you don't like the British media's take (which has actually been much kinder in latter days) you ain't gonna like this Texan:

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/02/28 ... -only.html

Thought you might like to review Gil LeBreton’s apology Tuesday to all Canadians, for his distasteful analogy on Monday.


http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-pape ... id=2634651

TUESDAY
My intention in Monday morning's wrap-up column wasn't to offend Canada, the land of my ancestors, and my hosts of the past three weeks. On the contrary, I was trying to express my disappointment and surprise that, in my opinion, Canadians had failed to grasp the global mandate that being an Olympic host entails.
In doing so, I reached for a comparison -- and picked one in the 1936 Olympics that unintentionally may have offended the very people whose company I have enjoyed for these past days.
I apologize for offending them.
As I said in the wrap-up, I certainly implied no political analogies. But some comparisons are sensitive enough to be offensive just by their very mention.
I felt, in the rush to celebrate Canada's new patriotism, some of [the stories of other countries' athletes] were missed here.
That doesn't excuse me from making an insensitive comparison. But in 14 previous Olympic Games, never were the cheers for the visiting countries' athletes drowned out so ferociously. On the eve of the final day of these Games, I attended the team pursuit finals at the Richmond Olympic Oval. There were two medal ceremonies at the conclusion of the day's events.
In the first, the gold medal went to the Canadian men's team, and the Canadians in attendance cheered heartily and sang along with O Canada.
The women's medal ceremony was next. But as the gold medals were being placed around the necks of the Germans, much of the crowd was busy filing out.
That final scene prompted the column. The comparison I used prompts me to apologize to anyone who felt offended by it.

[kcin94]

I'm sure he didn't intend to compare canadians to nazis, but the rest of the article was still filled with misleading and sometimes incorrect facts which wasn't addressed in the apology.

[WestCoastJoe]

It's a half-a**ed apology. Better than no apology. He was trying to be conciliatory.

What does he expect at a game in the host city? Does he expect people to cheer half-heartedly? "Oh gee, we tried to cheer our team but got drowned out by the home team. How insensitive they are." Nonsense from LeBreton. What shook him was the strength of feeling in the cheering. How could anyone expect the level of cheering to be somehow modulated? Nonsense.

And, contrary to what LeBreton says, Canadians very much "get" the global mandate of everything. That is why we are looked upon as leaders by example and word in the integrated, multi-cultural world. Does anyone outside of the USA think they are leaders in understanding the cultures of the rest of the world?

Perhaps he saw the embrace of all things Canadian by the rest of the world. Perhaps he felt a pang of jealousy for something, as an American, he will never feel. He must have been feeling a lot of hostility to see the red and the maple leaf and think of Nazi Germany. And then to mention it in a column online. I recall Stephen Colbert with Michael Buble. Colbert asks: "Why Canada?" Buble answers: "Perhaps because when Americans travel they put a Canadian flag sticker on their luggage." Colbert acknowledged that.

Hey LeBreton. Perhaps you don't "get" Canada. Go on home to Texas and shake your head and try to figure out why the USA is not loved around the world.

Perhaps what he was feeling, being away from the insular comfort of his homeland, was some of the antipathy much of the rest of the world (not myself) feels towards the USA. I was with some new Canadian citizens when we played Slovakia. Oh my ... how fervently they looked forward to us defeating the USA. For myself, I didn't care who we were playing. But I sure had a vested interest in winning. Go Canada, my home and native land.

[Sir Purrcival]

I don't think much of the original article but there may be one grain of truth that runs through it.

There was an egocentric feel to these games that I don't remember from Calgary. Maybe just an intense focus on trying to do better on the medal podium, or just a strong desire to put on a good games, I don't know really, but it certainly did make me think the odd time or two that it seemed to have somewhat of a different feel than I remember from times past. In retrospect, maybe it was the throttling of sport coverage by CTV. Every time, I went to another website be it Sportsnet or TSN, anytime, I wanted to see something, bang, right back to the CTV site. I know they pay a ton of money for coverage but does anybody else think that the strangle hold on rights that the IOC sells off is maybe not entirely a good thing? It does tend to focus the coverage of whats worthy through the eyes of a few decision makers.

[TheLionKing]

Somebody please....pull the plug on the British media!

If you don't like the British media's take (which has actually been much kinder in latter days) you ain't gonna like this Texan:

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/02/28 ... -only.html

Thought you might like to review Gil LeBreton’s apology Tuesday to all Canadians, for his distasteful analogy on Monday.


http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-pape ... id=2634651

TUESDAY
My intention in Monday morning's wrap-up column wasn't to offend Canada, the land of my ancestors, and my hosts of the past three weeks. On the contrary, I was trying to express my disappointment and surprise that, in my opinion, Canadians had failed to grasp the global mandate that being an Olympic host entails.
In doing so, I reached for a comparison -- and picked one in the 1936 Olympics that unintentionally may have offended the very people whose company I have enjoyed for these past days.
I apologize for offending them.
As I said in the wrap-up, I certainly implied no political analogies. But some comparisons are sensitive enough to be offensive just by their very mention.
I felt, in the rush to celebrate Canada's new patriotism, some of [the stories of other countries' athletes] were missed here.
That doesn't excuse me from making an insensitive comparison. But in 14 previous Olympic Games, never were the cheers for the visiting countries' athletes drowned out so ferociously. On the eve of the final day of these Games, I attended the team pursuit finals at the Richmond Olympic Oval. There were two medal ceremonies at the conclusion of the day's events.
In the first, the gold medal went to the Canadian men's team, and the Canadians in attendance cheered heartily and sang along with O Canada.
The women's medal ceremony was next. But as the gold medals were being placed around the necks of the Germans, much of the crowd was busy filing out.
That final scene prompted the column. The comparison I used prompts me to apologize to anyone who felt offended by it.

That's not an apology. It's called back pedalling.

[WestCoastJoe]

I'm not about to let LeBreton off the hook, with his little weaselly half-baked conciliatory non apology.

Here, in a brief excerpt, is what he said in his column early in the Olympics ...

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, Gil LeBreton column: Hockey loss keeps Canadians reeling

By Gil LeBreton, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Feb. 23--VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Do you believe in catastrophes?

Yessss, Canada. Now, even your men's hockey team -- the NHL's alleged elite -- is letting the host country down.

Goaltender Ryan Miller stopped 42 of 45 shots, and Brian Rafalski stunned a red-mob home crowd with two early goals, and the United States held on to defeat Canada 5-3 Sunday night.
............

For the host team, though, there will be no rest.

Do you believe in lousy Olympics?

Canada's just got a lot worse.

GIL LeBRETON, 817-390-7760

I would call that hostile reporting. And I would call it schadenfreude ...

Schadenfreude | Define Schadenfreude at Dictionary.com
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

It seems to me the idiot came to the Vancouver Olympics with a sour attitude, a bad case of world-view myopia, with a delusion that he understands the rest of the world, and IMO it showed immediately. As far as I'm concerned he can go to He**. Or back to Texas, whichever will have him.

Perhaps the pinhead doesn't realize that Canadians read other news sources other than those published in Canada, unlike his own readership. Whatever ...

[kcin94]

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, Gil LeBreton column: Hockey loss keeps Canadians reeling

By Gil LeBreton, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Feb. 23--VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Do you believe in catastrophes?

Yessss, Canada. Now, even your men's hockey team -- the NHL's alleged elite -- is letting the host country down.

Goaltender Ryan Miller stopped 42 of 45 shots, and Brian Rafalski stunned a red-mob home crowd with two early goals, and the United States held on to defeat Canada 5-3 Sunday night.
............

For the host team, though, there will be no rest.

Do you believe in lousy Olympics?

Canada's just got a lot worse.

GIL LeBRETON, 817-390-7760

I wouldn't necessarily call that hostile reporting. Plenty of Canadian media outlets were calling Canada's performance at that point a catastrophe.