London 2012: A Final Analysis

"Look on the bright side, Harry, at least we
didn't have to pay to watch this garbage."

A supreme irony of Sunday night’s closing ceremony and the hostile reaction it provoked is that a predominating theme over the previous fortnight had been a refreshing change of attitude that the Olympics had brought to Britain. Gone was the sniping. Gone the cynicism. Gone the incessant moaning for which we are world-famous. Only for three hours of lazy cover acts masquerading as musicians to re-awaken the sleeping whinger in all of us again.

A shame that proceedings had to end on such a bum note, but what had come before had been so vital, so joyous, so life-affirming, that not even a show this bad could hope to overshadow it (The Guardian’s closing ceremony blogger summed things up perfectly as he quipped, "Just think: two weeks ago the world thought we were rubbish at sport and great at music")

Mr Bean: a bit naff by now at home, beloved worldwide
(believe me, the Bolivians loved it!). A smart move.

Then again, there were times on the evening of Friday the 27^th of August that I wondered if the sport, let alone the closing ceremony, could produce anything to rival the spectacle of Danny Boyle’s already-legendary curtain-raiser, particularly the spine-tingling combination of sight and sound as England’s ‘dark satanic mills’, forging those world-famous rings, rose to the soundtrack of Underworld’s And I Will Kiss and the beat of a thousand drummers. Boyle, who has always had a finger on the pulse of UK youth culture, was the only director capable of launching a Games whose motto was “Inspire a Generation”.

Hearts stop as one (not least at Ladbrokes).

And, as it happened, the most inspired move of the night was eschewing tradition and giving that very generation the privilege of lighting the Olympic cauldron, comprising a petal for each of the 204 competing countries. The bookies must have fainted in sheer ecstasy.

Beach volleyball: partisanship very much optional.

Pleasingly, those athletes who happened to come from one of the 203 non-British states were given the warmest of welcomes. Thousands of miles from London, I only had ESPN Latin America to rely on, but unless they were experiencing technical difficulties with their sound, it was abundantly clear to me that the foreign competitors were cheered to the rafters, with near-capacity crowds (full-houses prevented only by the IOC members’ indulgent self-service) at every venue.

Now here's an athlete who truly brings the world together. Women love
to see the back of him. And I can think of a fair few men who will too.

That legends were in their midst, and re-writing their own history at that, only added to the fervour. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt in particular ensured that Beijing was simply an episode of a greater story (though I still feel the Jamaican could have seen off yet another record by going hammer-and-tongs for the line in the 200m).

The girl from the Steel City showed nerves of just that to take the
heptathlon gold.

But no Olympics is complete without home nation success – it just so happens that it’s of particular convenience to me and my compatriots this time. Chris Hoy, like the above mentioned, reaffirmed his place in history, contributing his fair share to the Massacre at the Velodrome. Mo Farah reduced the unflappable Brendan Foster in the BBC commentary box to blithers – twice. In Jessica Ennis, the Royal Family’s latest addition may finally have met her match in the Nation’s Sweetheart stakes. And did I shrug my shoulders in apathy as oor Andy mugged the greatest man to ever swing a racquet on Centre Court, in a sport I didn’t think should even have been included? Not exactly.

A nation rejoices as the King of Centre Court gets a Rogering
on his own lawn.

(Medal tables still grate with me, but the raw data is impressive on this count: compared with our table-topping US friends, we took about two-thirds of their total golds despite having one-fifth of their population – and that’s not to mention the runners-up! Playing at home certainly does the trick.)

It didn’t take long after London’s successful bid seven years ago for realism to well and truly set in – 24 hours, in fact, as Islamist terrorists wreaked havoc with the London transport network on the 7^th of July, taking 52 civilian lives in the process. A couple of years down the line, the world economic crisis hit home and as we watched Beijing in all its ostentatious glory, it became clear that London could not hope to win on such terms.

Trying Really Hard: soooo 2008! 

Instead, something wonderful happened, something which, if anything, would give the world an Olympics truer to its founding principles and London’s own avowed aim, since the bid process, of inspiring youth. As a nation, we have rightly been accused in the past of relying on our past ‘achievements’ – repulsive to the hundreds of millions who suffered under the Empire – to engender respect. The realities of austerity actually freed us to infuse the Games with a spirit of good humour, humility and healthy lashings of self-deprecation, and it appears the watching world has, to a great extent, been won over.

The true heroes of London.

Before coming out to Bolivia, I had a ringside seat to the dramas of British youth culture, working as an English teacher in two secondary schools, while living in a particularly benefit-hungry corner of Glasgow. As we set off for the mission field, absent family and friends would be mourned, but as for the materialistic, something-for-nothing attitude that was increasingly setting in…well, we were glad to see the back of that.

What has happened in London over those ‘happy and glorious’ 17 days has gone some way to restoring my faith in Britain’s ability to see past ourselves and our often trivial needs. 70,000 men and women from all backgrounds took two weeks off their work, travelled to London and paid their own way in one of the world’s most eye-wateringly expensive cities just to give the world a proper welcome – and that’s not to mention the 220,000 who were turned away due to lack of space. The biggest cheer of last night was reserved not for the athletes but for the ordinary Britons who made it all possible. Maybe, just maybe, in more than just an athletic sense, we can indeed inspire a generation.

Saturday Post -- 28/07/12

You’ll excuse a shorter post this week – as you might have guessed from recent posts, an international gathering in London is limiting still further my ability to multi-task.

In the kennel, mother and babes are well. Indeed, we’ve had to start factoring milk money into our weekly budget, as Poppy, like her pups, is certainly developing a taste for the white stuff. Some images:

And in the classroom, things have been shaping up nicely too. Students returned to school this week after the traditional two-week winter break and we resumed our studies in the gospel of John with the teenagers. Meanwhile, at FT, the Wednesday Community class also reconvened after the holiday, with the number of attendees doubling.

Particularly exciting for me were the English classes, in which we have been getting progressively deeper into our English-language book entitled ‘What Christians Believe’. Over the last few weeks, we have moved into the big territory of Jesus’ death and resurrection and their practical implications. As has been highlighted previously here, the notion of salvation by grace is an inherently challenging one in this culture, and it’s been a real thrill to have the class over-run week after week, as we’ve dealt with a whole slew of questions from the students by diving into scripture. I had stepped outside the classroom for a few moments on Thursday when I overheard one of the students saying, “This class is wonderful. At first, all we were doing was reading simple English sentences. But now, we’re not only learning English, but having such thought-provoking discussions.” When we launch next year’s classes, I’ll need to stick that quote on the poster.

Prayer

• For the youth group where, to tie in with the big event, we’re having an Olympic-themed focus in the next few weeks, beginning with tonight’s ‘Opening Ceremony’.

Praise

•  For the powerful impact the Bible-based English classes are having on our students.

¡Que Dios les benidga!

Craig & Amanda

Ringing in the Olympics: Beijing

A photo to match the occasion.

This blog has already reflected on some poor hosting decisions by the IOC, but 2008 was the all-time nadir. It was, of course, only a matter of time before the world's most populous nation got their crack of the whip (no pun intended), but IOC pledges to hold China accountable for human rights violations in the run-up proved, to nobody's great surprise, utterly vacuous.

The Games themselves will be remembered for the multiple medal heroics of three men: Michael Phelps (8) and Chris Hoy (3) swept aside all before them in the pool and the cycling track, respectively. But, for me, the 2008 Olympics will always be synonymous with surely the most aptly named athlete ever to compete in their sport: Bolt. Though, at times, he could just as easily been monickered Saunter or Amble, not least as he nonchalantly strolled over the 100m finish line, giving himself breathing space to break some more world records. Not so in the 200m, where he went full-pelt for the line and became the first athlete to break the 100m and 200m records in the same Games.

Charismatic, engaging, self-deprecating, Bolt had the winning personality to go with his medals. It's both a sad indictment of the state of modern athletics and a reflection of Bolt's greatness that, some months later, a friend of mine said to me, "Boy, I sure hope he's not on drugs." Rarely have I been more in agreement.

Here's Bolt on tape, with the even greater 2009 performances in Berlin thrown in as a bonus.

Ringing in the Olympics: Athens

Now that's just terrifying.

Athens. Meh. My apathy for the 2004 Games can probably be explained, in large part, by my having just returned from a month-long (and, in time, not matrimonially insignificant) trip around the US and Canada with nary a penny to my name. Consequently, I took a waiting job at a local hotel for the remaining two months of the summer break, but, as the new kid on the block, seemed to end up getting dumped with all the split shifts. With the big outdoor events (including the swimming that year) understandably taking place in the morning and evening, there wasn’t much left for me to nibble on.

That said, while I largely missed out on Michael Phelps’ arrival on Mount Olympus among other historic moments, I suspect I’m not alone in thinking that Athens didn’t quite deliver. The build-up was marred firstly by construction delays and then, just when everything seemed to be finally in place, the news came through that two of Greece’s brightest gold medal prospects had tested positive for banned steroids – the night before the Games! As the sport got going, the fans didn’t get behind proceedings to anything like the extent of their Sydney equivalents four years earlier, and, with the benefit of hindsight, the whole affair probably contributed significantly to Greece’s current economic travails. In short, a golden opportunity to prove to the IOC that they’d got the Atlanta decision woefully wrong was, in my opinion, well and truly blown.

Some silver linings, though, came in the shape of some GB success. Chris Hoy would win the first of four gold medals (and counting) in the 1km time-trial. And I well remember the night I got back late from work to read that Kelly Holmes, a true veteran of the track, had finally struck gold in the 800m, at an age when she was considered past it. A few days later, as she lined up for the 1500m, most commentators reckoned the double was a foregone conclusion – the future Dame Kelly would cruise to victory and for once in the history of the British sports media, the result justified the hype.

Ringing in the Olympics: Steve Redgrave

Much as I enjoyed the Sydney Olympics, they were something of a bittersweet experience for me as, during the second week, I was due to take my first significant steps out of the family nest for my gap-year in Bolivia. To give me a decent send-off, our parents booked a few nights in one of our favourite cottages up in Dornoch.

I well remember that Friday night when my brother and I stayed up long after the rest had turned in, to watch this man make Olympic history. And yet, he so very nearly didn’t. As a seasoned Manchester United supporter, I’d been used to last-minute drama, but hadn’t seen anything quite like this.

Naturally, there was a clamour in the aftermath to unofficially crown Redgrave the Greatest Olympian in History. Well, three others have actually managed the same feat of striking gold at five consecutive Games. And, of course, Chris Hoy, in the coming days, could overtake Redgrave’s haul. But to do it consistently over two decades in a sport that inherently prohibits multiple medal attempts in one staging, (not to mention while battling severe illness) is, for me, the greater achievement. He is, for my money, Britain’s greatest Olympian.

Ringing in the Olympics: Eric the Eel

“It’s not the winning, but the taking part, that counts.” We get this well-intentioned advice drummed into us from an early age, but as life kicks into gear, with its school prizegivings endured from the back row and the press regaling us with ‘news’ of the world’s big players, it soon becomes evident that such guidance merits one response and one response only: “Aye, right then!”

The Olympics, for all their noble corinthian intentions, deliver much the same message every four years. Who, for example, could even hope to name even three of Michael Phelps’ fellow finalists in the 2008 100m butterfly? And why would you?

Step forward, then, Eric Moussambani. Gaining his ticket to Sydney via a wildcard system, which allowed developing countries without training facilities to send athletes who had fallen short of the times to compete in the Games, he found himself on the blocks alongside two other swimmers in his 100m freestyle heat. Both of them false-started (four years’ preparation for that!), leaving Moussambani as the sole competitor in his heat. And despite a bright start, the burden of an entire arena’s expectations soon took their toll on the Equatorial Guinean, who had never even seen a 50m pool before arriving in Australia. His time of 1:52.72 would fall outside the world record for even the 200m and he would later admit to reporters that his final 15 metres were a struggle just to stay afloat. Never knowingly deficient on the irony-quotient, the Aussies nonetheless cheered him to the rafters and the swimmer who would henceforth be nicknamed 'Eric the Eel' got more than his fair share of the Warholian fame allocation.

Have the Olympics, before or since, ever witnessed a display of such abject hopelessness? Probably not. But nor have the egalitarian principles that the Games strive for been so magnificently displayed.

Haven't been able to put the video here, but here's a link to it, with some comedy Aussie commentary.

Ringing in the Olympics: Thorpe and Freeman

A few summers back, Amanda and I took a trip down to south-west London and joined the legendary Wimbledon Queue. We knew we were riding our luck somewhat as our targeted day was the second Wednesday of the fortnight, men’s quarter-finals day, and the final opportunity of the Championships to get your hands on those prized show-court permits. We were rewarded with ringside seats on Centre for Federer and Murray’s victories, though we made it by the skin of our teeth.

This being Wimbledon, the Queue (it does indeed merit capitalisation) was organised with levels of efficiency that would embarrass a German. Upon arrival (a full 24 hours before our scheduled matches), we were issued with tickets 530 and 531. With 500 tickets set aside for each court, there was no guarantee we’d get to see oor Andy. But as the day went on, it became clear we might just about make it. Because when the following day’s schedule was released in the early evening, Lleyton Hewitt’s tie with Roddick was to be played on Court One. And some way ahead of us in the queue was a sea of green-and-gold and the customary Bundy Rum-fuelled rounds of “Let’s go, Lleyton, let’s go!”

In Britain we pride ourselves on being sports-mad, but I don’t reckon anywhere in the world comes close to Australia. Sure, the most die-hard football fan in the UK could match the frenzied passion of your typical Aussie Rules supporter. But the difference, as far as I can tell, is that Australians will get hammer and tongs into any sport where one of their brethren is competing. If Bruce from Tasmania were competing in the Greenland Tiddlywinks invitational, you’d be bound to find at least one compatriot there, cheering him on, tinnies to hand.

And that more than anything else, is what, for me, places the Sydney Games at the top of the pile. Australia, as they were bound to, embraced the Games like no nation before or since and the reverberations could be felt worldwide.

Of course, the sheer pride of hosting the games ensured the support went way beyond the mere partisan. But national pride was not completely out of the equation, and the hopes of a nation rested predominantly, if not quite completely, on the shoulders of Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman.

While I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the all-conquering Michael Phelps over the past couple of Games, the Thorpedo will always be no.1 for me. Until 2000, I hadn’t really gotten into Olympic swimming. Thorpe changed that, cruising his way to three gold medals and, unlike Phelps, never really looking like he was trying (a bit like Federer and Nadal in tennis) and posting super-human times in the process.

The race that really did it for me was the 4x100m freestyle, a true AUS v USA smackdown, (the US never having previously lost it) in which Thorpe had the anchor leg and looked like he had it all to do with 50 metres remaining. And all he did. I’ve met Australians who were there that night and will tell you that the earth literally shook in that arena. Video below.

The opening ceremonies of the Games these days tend to feature much well-intentioned waffle about nations and people groups coming together as a force for good. On the evening of Monday the 25^th of September, that, for once, really did happen, as Cathy Freeman, of native Australian descent, took gold in the women’s 400m and a nation with its fair share of racial baggage in its past celebrated as one. With Jonathan Edwards and Denise Lewis doing it for GB in the triple-jump and heptathlon, it was one of those special nights in an athletics arena when TV directors know not where to turn next, greatness seemingly taking place all at once.

Ringing in the Olympics: Michael Johnson

History, it must be said, has been far from kind to the Atlanta Games. I’ve met a fair few Americans who, understandably, consider it the best ever. Given that I barely saw any of it, I’m not particularly qualified to judge. But, for me, the chief finger of blame has to be squarely pointed not at the games organisers themselves, but the suits at the IOC. Why, for the 1996 edition, was a bidding process even permitted, let alone Athens denied the centennial homecoming its Olympic history so richly deserved?

As for me, I spent pretty much the whole two weeks on holiday with the family on the banks of Lake Geneva. Not that it was an Olympic-free zone, mind you (far from it – the IOC’s HQ, and scene of much corruption in Lausanne, was just down the road). The spanner in the works came in our renting out a spacious apartment in a Bible School. There goes the telly then!

As it turned out, my Dad and I took to rather more traditional measures to keep up with proceedings in those dark, pre-smartphone days, buying two-day-old British papers from a local train station. And well do I remember the day when the front pages told of a sporting achievement beyond comparison. That’s right: Alan Shearer’s record-breaking £15million move to Newcastle had just gone through.

It would take something truly special to share column inches with the Geordie hysteria (I exaggerate not) and Michael Johnson, at his home Games, provided it. The numbers themselves (43.49 in the 400m, 19.32 in the 200m) painted a picture of unparalleled greatness that the accompanying prose could hardly hope to embellish.

Johnson would only grow in my estimations in subsequent years, joining the BBC athletics commentary team and somehow lending expertise and gravitas to a studio with Sue Barker in it.

As for Atlanta, I had the opportunity to visit the historic city in 2004 and, while the stadium had long since been handed over to the local baseball team, the Olympic legacy is alive and well in Centennial Park, built for the Olympics and a great place, right smack-bang in the middle of town, to laze away a sunny afternoon (Coca-Cola, thankfully, optional).

Ringing in the Olympics: Linford Christie

2^nd of August 1992, the middle Saturday of the Barcelona Games and a veritable GB gold-rush for those days (we won two!).

First up, Steve Redgrave makes it three in a row and a lunchtime to remember with new partner, posh-boy Pinsent (writing the first chapter of his own Olympic legend).

And then, accompanying the evening meal – pizza and chips was the Saturday plat du jour round at chez Cunningham – the small matter of the men’s 100m final and lycra-loving Linford Christie, perhaps the most terrifying man ever to grace the track, the subsequent slow-motion clips playing like horror shorts. After 20 metres, the rest was a formality.

Never the most popular among his fellow athletes (the above-mentioned Derek Redmond described him as a well-balanced man, having “a chip on both shoulders”), fuel was generously doused on the fire in later years with that drug ban. That said, many an elite sportsman has done the business well into his 30s – for proof, one need only look so far as Ryan Giggs, Roger Federer and Jocky Wilson.

Ringing in the Olympics: Derek Redmond

Many of the best memories are for me, inevitably, dominated by GB glory. However, I’d like to think this would have made the list no matter my nationality. And anyway, this isn’t exactly a glorious moment. And yet, it kind of is.

Now this is one I have to admit to having not watched live, though you’d have had to be living on Mars to have not picked up on it during the Games. Redmond was fairly well known to the British public as a member of the 4x400m gold medal-winning team at the 1991 world championships. However, his career had been mostly blighted by injury and withdrawals, including one on the morning of his first heat in Seoul.

Nonetheless, things seemed to be turning the corner as he took to the blocks in his 400m semi-final, with a dreamed-of place in the final very much on the cards. The starting gun fired, Redmond careered round the first curve…and the rest is now enshrined in Olympic legend (and recounted by Redmond and others in the video, below).

This embodiment of the Olympic spirit was to serve as an inspiration to millions in years to come, including legions of men looking themselves in the mirror on a Saturday night and wondering if they’re really up to the task ahead. For what Redmond and dad could not have known that fateful August afternoon was that this act of a fatherly intervention in order to rescue a fallen son was to become the go-to illustrations for many a sermon around the world, including one of my own.

Cheers, Del boy, I owe you one!

Ringing in the Olympics: Hoop Dreams

My affection for the Barcelona Games has already been stated, and the passing of time has done little to diminish its status in my affections. For me, of the five stagings I have to choose from, it ranks a very close second to Sydney.

I think it was a summer Sunday evening (when church always seemed to take something of a backseat for a couple of months) that we were sat as a family in front of the day’s highlights show and I first came across these boys: The Dream Team. A remarkable basketball team in themselves, except that I had never seen professional basketball played in my life, let alone with such gusto. Over the course of the two weeks, Jordan, Johnson, Pippen et al were to slam-dunk and alley-oop their way into my affections like few other sporting outfits since.

I’m well aware that a fair few Americans still consider 1992, and its opening of the floodgates for subsequent NBA-festooned US teams, to have been something of an insult to amateur hoops and the Olympic ethos in general. An important debate, for sure, but one I couldn’t possibly have grasped as a goggle-eyed 9-year-old. The biggest disappointment as far as I was concerned was to come in later years, as I learned that the standard they set was, indeed, unreachable. Basketball was rarely, if ever, to re-surface on my radar as a serious interest, but for my contemporaries and I, the NBA boom that Barcelona undoubtedly spearheaded did leave one important legacy: NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo, an imperious sports simulation! BOOM shack-a-lack!

Ringing in the Olympics: Ben Johnson

Of course, the big headlines in 1988 were generated by this guy, who I first encountered on the news, not on the track but wandering around bemusedly in a tracksuit while surrounded by a veritable platoon of photographers. I promptly asked my Mum what drugs were. And a little bit of my innocence, as Don McLean might have put it, took the last train for the coast.

Ringing in the Olympics: Greg Louganis

While I wasn’t quite attuned to what was going on around me in 1988, a couple of Seoul moments did provoke twitches in the old antennae, largely due to their making the headlines on the Six O’Clock News (Mum’s perennial revenge for having to sit through the tea-time purgatory of Neighbours the half-hour before).

The first is captured in this stunning photograph, which somehow lends a touch of grace to what can only be described as a bloke tonking his head off a diving board. Forget world records etc.: for a six-year-old raised on a diet of slapstick cartoons, this oft-repeated clip was a source of endless fascination, Looney Tunes incarnate.

Ringing in the Olympics

"BARCELOOOOOOOONAAAAAAAAAAAAA...!!!"

The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away.

You never forget your first time. Linford Christie surging for the line, arms outstretched, eyeballs blazing. The Dream Team making basketball disciples of all nations. Steve Redgrave heaving himself to within two gold medals of a knighthood. And who can forget that quintessentially Catalan opening ceremony, crowned in a blaze of glory as an archer lit the Olympic cauldron with a flaming arrow (or did he?).

I was 9 years old and had never seen anything quite like it. I now need only hear the opening bars of the above-quoted Freddie Mercury/Montserrat Caballé standard (which inevitably yet masterfully accompanied the BBC’s opening titles) and the goosebumps make their customary appearance.

The 1998 Seoul Games registered somewhere at the back my subconscious (I vaguely remember coverage on in the background as I toddled home from school for lunch). Two years later, the sight of a grown man in a white shirt crying his eyes out on a football pitch, and bringing no end of amusement to the other grown-ups watching the telly, gave me momentary pause as I ran around a Scripture Union family camp up in Plockton. But 1992 was the first time I properly engaged with a major sporting event and so the Olympics (strictly the summer version) have commanded my attention to varying degrees of enthusiasm ever since.

The relationship has not always run smoothly, with the frustrations, if anything, increasing as the years have passed. Am I alone in considering a medal table to be the very antithesis of the Olympic ideal? In addition, an Olympic medal is a mere curio in the cabinet of any successful tennis player, footballer or (from 2016) golfer – both these great sports and the Games themselves are the worse for their inclusion in the programme.

My biggest gripe, however, rests not with the IOC but with certain elements of the British media (The Daily Telegraph is a chief culprit), who seize their four-yearly opportunity to not-so-subtly knock football and its fans with untold relish. A Brit picks up some serious metal in the likes of equestrianism, archery or sailing (among many other sports whose sole reason for inclusion is that the original founders probably indulged in them at weekends on their estates) and all of a sudden we get the customary “what a damning indictment of our nation that this sport doesn’t get the exposure it deserves!” sermon from some corner of middle-England. Well there’s a reason it doesn’t, matey: it’s rubbish.

However, so many have been the moments of sheer, jaw-wiping-off-the-floor, sporting magnificence that these irritations have not quite yet extinguished my continued enthusiasm as London 2012 approaches. Though I understand – nay, anticipate – the customary pessimism from my Caledonian brethren (the Games organisers’ solitary sob to Scots being a quite pathetic football schedule at Hampden Park – Egypt v Belarus, anyone?), it is a source of some regret to me that I won’t be in the UK for surely the only ‘home’ Olympics of my lifetime.

So, inspired by the recent columns on the BBC Sport website by legendary commentator Barry “Just look at his face” Davies, I’ve elected to keep my spirits up by posting a few of my own personal Olympic highlights (illustrated on Facebook of late) right here on this very blog in the build-up to the Games. It’s just that when I say “I was there”, I more often than not refer to a well-worn sofa. 

No ring-rustiness here

Back in the UK, there’ll be the usual IOC-sating BBC coverage, weather-worn clips of Sarajevo ’84 and (if we’re lucky) yet another Cool Runnings repeat.

Not so here in Canada, where our first sighting of the famous five rings was in the queue at the customs desk. That’s right, it’s so big they won’t even let you in the country without your loyal acknowledgement.

Of course, the fact that the proceedings will be played out in Vancouver (where an unusually mild winter is causing officials to store extra supplies of snow – yes, you read that correctly) is a contributing factor, but it merely adds fuel to the quadrennial hype-furnace in a nation which has long referred to ‘the summer Olympics’ and ‘the Olympics’.

And there’s no question which event is the most written-about, argued over and anticipated with religious fervour. Indeed, the single gold medal up for grabs in the ice hockey tournament may as well be a championship in itself. Imagine the Olympic football tournament allowing full-strength squads and having no World Cup to rival it and you’re perhaps about halfway there.

I was here in December 2005 when the country practically came to a standstill. For the squad announcement.

Naturally, no marketing department with their wits about them can afford to miss out on such an opportunity and Coca-Cola have duly obliged in cinemas with this admittedly brilliant encapsulation of the pre-eminent place in Canadian culture of the good old hockey game. Believe me, I saw it pre-Avatar the other week and at least one person I know shed a tear...