If we cloak ourselves in glory when a national team achieves victory, we wear the coat of shame when they bring dishonour.
I’ll never forget the booming roar of the crowd, growing louder as I climbed the stairs out of the subway in Toronto to the streets throbbing with a celebration of Canadians following Olympic hockey gold over the U.S.A. in 2010.
Sidney Crosby scored the winner and we celebrated as if we had put the puck in the net.
When our women’s soccer team won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, we swelled with pride. Our Olympic committee said those women had changed the face of soccer forever.
Olympians “win for their country.”
Christine Sinclair, the greatest soccer scorer of all time – which is another point of pride – said then, “We’ve inspired a lot of kids.”
No doubt she was right; especially an inspiration for little girls to go for gold.
What are the kids thinking now?
Our team was caught in a cheating scandal that first looked to be the handiwork of a couple of over-eager, lower-level members of the coaching staff.
The head coach declared no knowledge of the transgression and voluntarily absented herself from the sidelines of their first Paris contest against New Zealand.
Then TSN’s Rick Westhead reported that cheating has been common practice for the team for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics where it won gold.
Soccer Canada believed him and so did FIFA, which brought down a devastating six-point deduction, fined the national federation $313,000 and banned head coach Bev Priestman for one year.
Some are saying the penalty is unfair as it penalizes players who had nothing to do with it.
To believe that is to believe the Canadian women are at best naïve or at worst complicit and lying about it.
They are not idiots.
There is no point in cheating unless it’s to gain an advantage and how could that be achieved without player knowledge?
Such is sports fandom that, when our team wins, “we” win.
When they lose, “they” lose and we distance ourselves.
Remember the pride when Ben Johnson won gold in the 100 metres at the 1988 Olympics? The world’s fastest man. A Canadian.
Then glory turned to shame when he was found to be doping and stripped of his medals.
“Well,” we said, “not really Canadian. Born in Jamaica.”
We have that handy excuse with women’s soccer coach Priestman, who coached the team to gold in Tokyo and travelled with great national anticipation with the team to Paris only days ago.
She isn’t Canadian either, thankfully. She is from England. Let’s blame them.
When it comes to the Olympics we are all involved. The federal government just infused $55 million into the teams and individuals in Paris.
The government said it was doing so to “invest in athletes and organizations working hard to represent Canada internationally.”
So that $313,000 fine hurts. We worked hard for that money.
On the weekend, the government said it’s withholding “some” funding from soccer.
Sunday afternoon in a sports bar in Toronto, when Vanessa Gilles scored the winning goal over France, the crowd erupted, as it does when its champions win.
I hope they inspire a lot of little kids.
I hope coaches and parents teach lessons about winning with honour.