When the Canadian women's soccer team suffered a 2-1 loss Wednesday to world champion Japan in the opening day of competition at the 2012 Olympic Games there was a collective “ah” of disappointment let out by thousands of soccer fans across the country.
We weren't expecting to beat the world champions but Canadian hopes and expectations at the Olympic Games have risen so dramatically in the last decade that we were hopeful. And that's a monstrous change from the days when Canada went into the Games – summer or winter – with little expectations and only a few legitimate medal contenders.
What Canadian will ever forget the embarrassment of the Montreal summer Games in 1976 followed by the winter Games in Calgary in 1988? We failed to win a gold medal in either, becoming the first country to ever host the summer Games and not win a single gold medal and the first country to hold multiple Games and not win gold.
It certainly wasn't for lack of talented athletes, but all the Canadian talent in the world wasn't going to beat the heavily-financed and well-run amateur sports programs of other countries.
Oh, we've had our moments of glory over the years with the likes of Lori Ann Muenzer, Alex Baumann, Victor Davis, Lennox Lewis, Linda Thom and others. But their successes were more about their personal dedication than any Canadian system.
Then along came Own The Podium in 2005 and Road To Excellence in 2006: programs designed and financed to try to make Canada the best sporting nation at the Olympics. That’s not likely to happen, but what has happened is we have become competitive and we are a nation to be reckoned with at the Olympic Games.
It was Spruce Grove’s “Little Pepper,” freestyle skier Jennifer Heil, who sent the message to the world on the opening day of the 2006 Winter Games – Canada has arrived and we're not going away, so get ready for a fight, world.
Heil went out that day with all the pressure of the world on her shoulders – she was the best female freestyle skier in the world, everyone expected her to win. Unlike many Canadians before her, Heil did not fail. She won the first gold medal of those Games and sparked us to a then-Canadian record seven gold medals. She didn't say it, but her message was clear – we're no longer going to the Games to compete, we're going to win.
At the 2008 summer Games Canada collected three gold and 18 medals, our most medals ever, other than the boycotted ’84 Games in Los Angeles. We followed that at the Vancouver 2010 winter Games with 10 gold medals – a record for a host country – and 26 overall, third behind only the perennial powerhouses U.S. and Germany.
Our summer teams still have a ways to go but our team went into London full of confidence, with a ton of talented athletes capable of winning and with our new attitude.
As Ken Read, the former Crazy Canuck who instilled that attitude in our skiers back in the early ’80s, recently said: "We've established a new culture in Canada."
A culture of winning. So sit back and enjoy the next two weeks and celebrate every Canadian victory that comes along.
