"Leave No Doubt"

sure a picture of Crosby and Harper.

where is the picture of Miller and Ignatieff?

Or Ovechkin and Layton?

Yeah, yeah. I know. A cheap shot.

(At Ovechkin.)

Harper is trying to boost his own party's pathetic popularity by milking the Olympics for all they are worth. Oh well, he needs all the help he can get. Now that parliament is back in session his and the conservatives feet will be held to the fire over a whole host of issues. Too bad Mike Babcock's message doesn't apply to the conservatives.

Not quite corny enough. They should add;

Give 110%, and Go Hard or Go Home.

That would remove all doubt that the coach is an idiot. Good thing the players are professionals, who see through all that psychobabble.

cal2:

That would be a picture of Ignatieff holding a Miller beer.

What I want to see is President Obama presenting PM Stephen Harper with that case of Molson Canadian.

Mike Babcock should get a 24 pack of glacier cool crisp Kokanee, for the motivational memo.

Cheers for Beer!

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"

"Harper is trying to boost his own party's pathetic popularity by milking the Olympics for all they are worth."

Only Conservatives would ever attempt to promote their own party, of course.

Politicians from other parties would never stoop to such a bare-faced tactic, would they?

What did you take in college? Advanced studies in the blindingly obvious?

It's all well and good that the team won but aren't we taking this all a little too far?
It isn't like we won a major war or found a cure for cancer or something. Get a grip, it was just a hockey game. I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team, their healthcare and Tom Horton's coffee.
We in Canada have yet to grow up.

Had the Americans scored, that would have removed a lot of doubt as well.

I much prefer the ending we were given. Future Canadian success is going to take a lot of work and perseverance.

atric:

When it comes to hockey and it's paraphenalia we're way past growing up...

Cheers for Beer!

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"

http://www.thestar.com/living/fashion/article/774231--mike-babcock-s-lucky-red-silk-mcgill-tie-is-sold-out?bn=1

Mike Babcock's lucky red silk McGill tie is sold out

It's called the Babcock now.

The red silk necktie worn by coach Mike Babcock Sunday – when the Canada's Olympic men's hockey team beat the U.S. winning gold in nailbiting overtime – has captured attention throughout the Games.

By Tuesday the tie, with its conservative diagonal stripes and McGill University shields, was sold out.

Babcock, an alumnus of McGill University, has said many times that the tie brings him luck.

It even has its own Facebook page: Mike Babcock's McGill Tie, which has roughly 1,000 fans, more than the coach himself.

McGill University's Lawrence Marzette has been shocked by the reaction.

"In a good month we might sell two ties," said Marzette, manager of the University's bookshop, which sells McGill-branded merchandise.

But within hours of the historic hockey win, the shop sold 90 ties at $49.99 apiece to buyers across Canada and the U.S. Now there's a waiting list to buy it.

Considering the contribution by Saskatchewan players, at least a six-pack worth of Great Western Pil should be in that Two-four.

"Get a grip, it was just a hockey game. I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team, their healthcare and Tom Horton's coffee."

And you would describe it as??????
Bragging about our healthcare how? How it compares to Cuba and N.Korea. Your guy Danny Williams wasn't too keen on Canadian healthcare, now was he.

"I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team..."
Posted by: atric at March 3, 2010 10:41 AM

Would you feel better if we opened a few more needle exchange and drug injection sites? That would be the sign of a mature society would it not?

"I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team, their healthcare and Tom Horton's [sic] coffee.

If it comes to a choice though, I'll take hockey and Tim's over healthcare.

There's nothing intrinsically Canadian about healthcare. What a "national dream" to have and to hold for future generations: Canada is a "social democratic state" - how unique!

Of course, when you're too modern to care about your national history, traditions and origins,* all you're left with is doughnuts and sports.**

* Champlain? La Nouvelle France? Wolfe and Montcalm? Loyalists? The War of 1812? The 1837 rebellions? Confederation? The monarchy? The Last Spike? British Empire? Two world wars? Old hat, my friend, it might offend our new immigrants...

** I believe Juvenal called it "panem et circenses".

Love it! I think it's great! Almost as sweet as the looney frozen in the ice in Salt Lake City.

I have to agree with atric on this one. Sports is entertainment, not national character. I'm not convinced that how well a hockey team plays is any reflection on the quality of the nation-state it comes from.

"I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team..."

I may have missed something. I didn't see any such assertion in either my post or the one linked to.

I have to agree with atric on this one. Team sports and the mass mania that surrounds them give me the creeps. The Olympics are too shallow, corrupt and superficial to bear the weight some people are placing on them.

I was not trying to be mean-spirited nor was I in any way criticizing the hockey team or Canada. It just seems to me that we have had all those things that generate national pride subsumed by the PC crowd and replaced by silly catchphrases and nostrums. For example, Some of these people think that our socialist healthcare system
is beyone reproach and brag about it, expecially to Americans. Hortons coffee is always held up to be a symbol of Canadianess. I'm not even going to mention hockey. The fact of the matter is, Canada is not and never was a nation of peacekeepers. Most of us don't celebrate diversity and multiculturalism. We don't like bilingualism, the human rights commissions and a host of other things that we are told make us special and unique.
Being deprived of those things through the exclusion of them in our educational system for
generations, we supplant them with the glorification of our atheletes and other unimportant things.

Sheesh everyone should lighten up! It was a motivational statement, absolutely nothing wrong with that!

atric makes valid points.

However, I like the notion of winning.

And I particularly like the fact that our winning hockey teams bring Canadian stature to the world stage exactly the way Harper has managed politically on the world stage.

Now if only we can keep our freedoms from the clutches of the commies and progressives currently grasping for power abetted by Canadian leftist MSM.

On the blog about Layton the camera whore, T says it is a non issue, move along, yet in this thread he lambastes Harper for apparently doing the same thing.

Hypocrite to a "T".

Is anyone else having problems with the link?

Oops. We might have just crashed it.

Link not working, can't get response from server.

A Kate-alanche.

A little off topic sorry

But i just watched a great interview on Stephen Taylor that was posted yesterday.
Brian Williams interviews PM Harper after record set & before gold medal hockey game.

Looks like you (or all of us), may have blown up the Cape Bretoner's server, Kate.

Anyone who doubts the importance of hockey as a symbol of Canada hasn't been paying attention. It's right there in Mike Babcock's message to his team "33 million Canadians are watching".

Mike Babcock kept saying in public that all he wanted was a chance. Then his team, and several other teams and individuals took advantage of their chances.

Seeing as others have already inserted a political spin to the post, I'll add mine. I believe that Stephen Harper is trying to give us the same thing Mike Babcock wanted. A chance.

If anyone happened to grab a screen shot or wrote the message down or can get it from somewhere else, perhaps they could post it here. It appears that it will be a while before the Cape Bretoner's site is available.

Can we get Mike Babcock or perhaps Sidney Crosby to repeal Section 13 and speak in plain language about the massive fraud that is climate change? Evidently Stephen Harper is too busy with the photo ops to get around to it.

We need to start holding this man to a higher standard, the word conservative has other meanings than the ones that he permits to attach to his personage.

I don't say that everything he does (or that the government does) is wrong, but it becomes increasingly clear that they leave out important things and just do some things well. It seems that we are being told to take it or leave it, that if this is not good enough, then the only alternative is to have the dreaded Liberals back.

I don't buy this evasive set of excuses. We've put up with this for about four years now, after being told that more fundamental changes would be forthcoming. Bread and circuses may buy off some of the base, but not all of us. Some are tired of the appetizers and want to get to the main course.

I would trade all those gold medals and momentary thrills for the knowledge that Canada would, some day, deal with situations of fundamental justice and integrity, that have been swept under the rug and hidden out of sight for a generation now.

Can we get Mike Babcock or perhaps Sidney Crosby to repeal Section 13 and speak in plain language about the massive fraud that is climate change? Evidently Stephen Harper is too busy with the photo ops to get around to it.

When our entire country can be proud of anything, it's a banner day and year.

As for the comment above, yes many would like that. Harper should attempt to enact all the wants of the conservative base while in a minority position. Then he could lose power and give the progressives the chance to start their economy destroying mission anew.
If you can't get that clear in your mind, you're either a progressive or a graduate of the Joe Clark school of stupid.

Tell me T what can the progressive/regressive loopy lefties milk? Well other than the tit of the taxpayer that is.

Don'cha just love those conservatives who are so conservative they withdraw their support of the Conservative Govt and thereby elect socialists.

BTW WAY TO GO CANADA! and I'm not even a hockey fan.

Where do you buy the kool-aid, Doolweb, or do they serve it at your riding association?

We are conservatives, not centrists. The centrists and progressives have political parties.

At the moment, we have a dog and pony show.

If that's Joe Clark speaking, then he's had brain surgery.

But listen, if half a loaf satisfies you, Harper's your guy.

The link is up again...and well worth the wait!

Only slight OT...speech from the throne (via Steve Taylor) includes 'Canada will fund a fight against Climate Change'...leaving some doubt.

Anyway, if the subtext of this topic is that we should associate Stephen Harper with the invincible powers of the Canadian way of life, these shallow formulations always come with hidden costs.

Stephen Harper seems to think that the road to power lies through casting himself as the English Canadian Jean Chretien, perhaps he is p'tit Steve from Calgary (although really it's Richview in west Toronto, and we're seeing those roots more clearly in focus recently).

The whole aw-shucks timbits and coffee routine is getting really tedious and has no real effect on the party's popularity -- I gather that polling numbers have gone up slightly during the Winter Olympics but then, we have to consider that the Harper brand has always been stuck somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent, whereas popular Liberals as well as Brian Mulroney in the past have reached high 40s or near 50 per cent, the fabric from which majority governments can be derived.

And nobody ever criticized those more popular leaders for their lack of ideological clarity, which brings me back to my original point -- the party's unstated but obvious aversion to clarity, their willingness to speak in deep and mystical codes, and then drag their feet and do nothing substantial on key issues, is not acceptable to many conservatives.

I don't know how to put it any more clearly than that, and this party will never succeed in gaining a majority until it starts to respond to what people actually want from a conservative government, which is a lot more than mere Liberal-style flag-waving and cheap theatrics.

Even if we lost on that basis, we would have a better country, because we could openly oppose those tendencies that are wrong and harmful in our society. The way things are today, we can neither oppose them nor change them, we just have to pretend they are not there. And I for one am sick and tired of pretence. Let the truth prevail.

Calm down folks, it is a metaphor.

Sports, especially team sports are something that people around the world can relate to(a common measurable) when our lives and experiences are quite different. Sure we could brag about the “Canada Arm” but someone in Dirka Dirkastan might think "WTF is that". It's the common languages of sport, music and art that often make it easier for strangers to converse in a friendly and civil manor. That is why sports are so important to the national identity of many countries worldwide.

Now everyone hold hands and repeat after me: Kum-by-ya my lord...

"..., may have blown up the Cape Bretoner's server..."
Cape Breton has a server??? So that's where my Commodore 64 went to.

National pride comes in many forms and naturally recent events are foremost in most minds so it is a natural gravitating point. Being proud of our ancestors burning down the White House 98 years ago, while a shining moment, doesn't have the same impact as recent history.

Aaaahhhh, Crosby.....

We are conservatives, Peter? That's a bit of a collectivist claim to make, don't you think? I've certainly never claimed to be a conservative, I've always claimed to be a libertarian- facing pragmatist. There's lots of libertarians and other varieties of right-center and right-of-center folks here, and not all of them are extremists either. On the other hand, I've always voted for the conservatives, that's how democracy works. I think you need to keep in mind that while SDA won a "Best Conservative Blog" award, SDA has also won the "Best Canadian Blog" four times in a row. The legacy here goes deeper than your agenda, Peter.

Meanwhile, it remains the case that We Are:
the people who read and comment at SDA.

Death to the great unwashed!!!! Don't they know the IOC is corrupt and Harper is not a Conservative?!!!

"In Canada, the game drew an average audience of 16.6 million on a collection of networks around the country, including CTV. About 26.5 million, representing about 80 percent of the nation's population, watched at least some of the game."

http://tinyurl.com/ylk3vhw

"I get a little nervous when a country defines itself by the prowess of their hockey team..."

Well, maybe, but it's better than having no Army and emulating Costa Rico. When Canada can get 26 million Canadians to all do something together, it's progress against apologizing for geing good at anything. Gawd, Trudeau really did a beatdown on some Canadians.

Thos: You missed the whole point.
Perhaps when Canada can get 26 million Canadians doing something IMPORTANT together for a change, then we can stop apologizing for not being good at anything.
You are part of the problem if you think a hockey game can achieve that.

That's only true according to your value of important, Atric. Some of us know that lots of Canadians are doing something important together every day of their lives. If you're not achieving that, Atric, perhaps you shouldn't be casting aspersions.

You too miss the point Vit.
My values are most likely similar to yours.
I apologize for not being as articulate as you
are, and further apologize to those whom I may have ofended by my comments.
There, is that Canadian enough for you?

"... casting aspersions." Ohhhh

One, two, three, four,
vit is starting a flame war.

{note to self: easy on the demon rum}

No flame war T/C, and apology accepted Atric. It's just that I don't like people attributing negative attributes to me due to some sort of titular collectivist label and combined axiologial value judgement. If one is going to say something about "Canadians" per se then I think it should be something that applies thereto, not just to some individual's personal tastes, because, as we all know: De gustibus non disputandum est. This sort of tendency towards generic groupism behaviour, so commonly demonstrated in these commons, is not, overall, a good thing.

Huh??

In any event, lets just agree that opinions are like ass%oles. Everyone has one.

Pax

Roger that, Atric. I'll get the next beer. Now we better cut
this out in order to avoid being smitten for chatting ;-)

Hockey is to Canada as;

Baseball is to the USA; as

Soccer is to UK; France; Spain; Italy; Germany; Portugal; Belgium; Brazil; Argentina; Bolivia; Paraguay; Chile; Columbia...

"Leave no doubt" --- that the reason we won was no one from Ottawa, Toronto or Montreal played on this team.

Uh, Canada goes 1 and 1 v US.
Last game is 3-2 Canada. In overtime. At home.
7 US goals v 6 Canada overall.

"Leave no doubt"?
Sorry. There's doubt.