2: The number times that Canada has hosted an Olympic games and failed to win a gold medal at those games.

So there was this “interesting” poll done for and released by the CTVglobemedia group this week. According to this poll, Wayne Gretzky was the top choice of Canadians – with 37 percent of the votes – to carry the Olympic flame the last few meters and like the cauldron in Vancouver on Friday. What makes this so “interesting” is that it was more-or-less rigged to give an answer that was acceptable to the organizers of the Vancouver Olympics and their media partners. Respondents to the poll had their choice of names from a short list of carefully vetted candidates, with no “off the board” answers allowed.

Why? Simple – two days earlier the Canadian Press did a poll that allowed people to answer with whoever the hell they wanted, and almost eighty percent of them answered with “Don Cherry” – someone completely unpalatable to the “media consortium” that is covering the games and, by extension, the Vancouver organizers who are effectively their willing lapdogs in this venture.

In other words, wrong network. Oops.

So who will carry the torch at the very end of the stupidly long and insanely commercialized run to Vancouver? Well, if we did things right it would be someone that is a huge hero to all Canadians for his or her exploits in sport. Period. This is what the Spaniards did with that amazingly cool archery shot in Barcelona, and what the Norwegians did with that swank ski jump in Lillihammer. Those guys were national heroes to people of all ages in their own countries, and if the rest of the world didn’t know who they were, well, fuck ‘em. Sadly, however, there are a bunch of factors at play here that will preclude that sort of choice. To wit:

VANOC And Their Media Buddies Are Evil Bastards Who Care Only About Sponsorship And Advertising Revenue. These are people who literally took sporting equipment out of the hands of poor kids all over the world to appease their corporate masters. And their biggest corporate master is the bloated consortium of Rogers, Bell, and CTVglobemedia. So there is no way in hell that anyone appearing on the super-happy-fun-Rod-Black-opening-show is going to have ties to any other media outlet in any way shape or form.

The Three Strikes Of Death. Canada is politically correct to the point of nausea, and the worst thing you could be in any sort of public or media function is white (strike one), male (strike two) and anglo (strike three, yer out). The chances of the final bearer or the sacred torch having all three of these qualities is functionally zero.

The Great Canadian Inferiority Complex. The Norse and the Iberians were happy – hell, proud – to pick someone that meant the world to them, and to hell with everyone else. Their games, their heroes. But here there is going to be some huge pressure to pick someone that is known to the rest of the world a.k.a The United States. People in the higher reaches of the VANOC cabal will be stressing about the choice being something that Bob Costas has to explain to everyone below the 49th parallel. I say big fucking deal, let Bob do his damn job and explain away, but there are not a lot of people in media in this country with the balls to support a choice like that.

Canadian Kids Have Gotten Really Stupid. Or, more to the point, they are sucking away at the American media tit all day long and all they know is whoever is on the front page of the tabloids or on American Idol or Dancing With The Morons or whatever. Our sports heroes of the past generation are completely meaningless to them, which is tragic and sad and really fucking annoying, but which is also a cold hard fact.

So who are we going to see? Frankly, I don’t have a clue. If 80 percent of average Canadians had their way it would be Don Cherry, but he works for the CBC and he definitely has the Three Strikes Of Doom. Sorry, Don. Liz Manley, who saved the Olympics for Canada in Calgary? Geatan Boucher, who should be a legend in winter sports here? Nope – the kids don’t know them and they are no-names south of the border. Kurt Browning? Wrong network. Gordie Howe, the greatest hockey player of all time? Nope – Three Strikes.

If you were going to be completely cynical you would suggest Celine Dion (Francophone, female, and famous in the states) or Shania Twain (female, famous in the states, and with a tenuous native connection) but even I am not ready to go that far yet. Yet.

If you want to go right off the board, a good wild card pick would be Bobby Orr. Sure, he has the Three Strikes Of Death against him, but he is also famous in the U.S. of A. and he has a contract with General Motors, the sponsor who has enough power with VANOC to force them to fuck over the people at Right To Play. GM carries a lot of weight in Vancouver this week, and Bobby is their number on celebrity pitchman. It might just be enough.

The only good part about this whole mess is that it probably means – despite whatever desperate anti-Cherry polls Globemedia is running – Gretzky is out. He’s packing the three strikes and he is a shill for Ford – see ya. And good riddance. The only thing he is worse at than coaching is being Canadian. He won’t even come north to slum with us hosers unless it is for some event where he can try and sell a few more bottles of his shitty wine. Bah.

1: The number of countries that have hosted an Olympic games and failed to win a gold medal during those games.

They say the best inventions are the simplest ones.

Amen, brother, amen.