DEAL WITH IT, AMERICA: IN 2006, YOU WERE OUT-KLASSED

You can't talk about Canadian success without acknowledging the U.S. of A.

So let's do that, if you care to be a little tongue-in-cheek. While this is one Canada's best sports years ever, at the same time is it one of America's worst?

Cindy Klassen, whose five medals were the highlight of this country's most successful Winter Olympics, was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Award just minutes ago as Canada's outstanding athlete. She symbolizes this year in Canadian sport, before Steve Nash and three other reigning MVPs -- soccer's Christine Sinclair as U.S. women's college athlete of the year, Justin Morneau in major-league baseball and Joe Thornton in the NHL.

Remember who was hyped to have a chance at winning five medals at Turin, and fell on his face -- fell on his face spectacularly? That was skiier Bode Miller, who turned in a craptacular Olympic performance.

Miller already had a biography and an eponymous video game by the time he got to Turin, but he went 0-for-5 on the ski hills in Italy and -- what was worse? -- had Bob Costas tear a strip off him on NBC for letting America down. Miller's public persona -- if not the young man himself -- became a symbol of America's Losing Year: Brash, self-indulgent and continually failing to live up to expectations.

The American hype machine had built up Miller into something he wasn't, just like it did with George W. Bush and his cronies back in early 2003. His Olympic showing wasn't historically bad for an American downhiller.

There is just no room for that kind of nuance when the forces of no-memory aim to trim the facts to suit their purposes -- just like they did with the cowboy coward in the White House in '03-04. Turns out Miller isn't Jean-Claude Killy, and Bush ain't Winston Churchill, no matter what anyone says.

The U.S. won one more Olympic medal than Canada (and nine golds to our seven), but you're comparing a large, sports-obsessed country of 300 million to a country of 32 million which has trouble funding any sport which isn't hockey. It just seemed that nearly anywhere you looked in '06, Canadians were enjoying more than our usual modest, thanks-for-comin'-out success and American athletes and teams were making like Bode Miller on his way out of a bar -- barely able to stand.

It went that way domestically and abroad for the U.S. The Super Bowl, America's biggest sporting event, was a lousy game that was forgotten immediately outside of the greater Pittsburgh and Seattle regions. The World Series was a mistake-fest that was won by a team which had fewer regular-season victories than the Toronto Blue Jays, not that St. Louis Cardinals fans should feel need to apologize for their unlikely victory.

Various Team USAs ate it big-time all year. Sweden, which has barely 3,000 female hockey players, beat the U.S. in the Olympic women's hockey semifinal.

World Baseball Classic? Canada, with a lineup of pros who earn less combined than Alex Rodriguez, who couldn't even decide what team he wanted to play for, beat Team USA, which was triumph enough. The powerhouse U.S. team couldn't even get to the semifinals.

A couple months after a very good NBA Finals, a team of U.S. bajillionaire basketball players failed to even reach the final at the world championship in Japan, losing to Greece -- which didn't have a single NBA player -- in the semis. Around that same time, it was coming to light that the cyclist who was supposed to retain North America's (imaginary) interest in cycling post-Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, may have been a drug cheat.

It's just as well the U.S. wasn't looking for redemption at the women's world basketball championship, since the Americans settled for a bronze medal there as well.

Soccer? The U.S. lost to tiny Ghana at the World Cup, and tying eventual winners Italy was pretty thin gruel after the No. 5-ranked Americans went winless and failed to advance out of group play. In tennis, American players failed to win a Grand Slam singles title. Only Andy Roddick, at the U.S. Open tellingly enough, was even able to make a final -- where he got blasted by Roger Federer.

Oh, but the Carolina Hurricanes did win the Stanley Cup, with an American coach in Peter Laviolette no less, which is great for U.S. hockey. Of course, it came at a time when the average American is fast losing interest in hockey, since ESPN has lost interest in hockey.

Most Americans wish now that their country had voted differently two years ago, granted. While you can't prove it, of course, it sure feels likes there's some karmic connection between the Bush era, America's low standing in the world and their teams and athletes getting their comeuppance. It's not all bad -- Americans always bounce back. Meantime, a down-on-its-luck America usually means better movies and music for Canadians and the rest of the world to devour.

Canada's sporting year wasn't perfect. The Grey Cup was a stinker. In terms of getting out of sports what one puts into it, we beat our southern neighbours but good.

Still, Americans, like people worldwide, turn to sports for an escape from the everyday world. It's a loose connection, but at a time when Bush has messed everything up so badly, they can't even count on that anymore -- regardless of whether or not they voted for him.

There's a lesson in there, not just for Americans but Canadians too. Many people in our country seem eager to move away from Bush's America, but a lot of the powers-that-be think we should emulate their example.

After all, where did our biggest sports disaster come this year? It was in men's hockey -- the one sport where we act all full of ourselves, behave obnoxiously, and are out to win at all costs... or as some Canadian almost always will inevitably (if wrongly) put it, like a bunch of Americans.

(This post was linked in Deadspin's "Blogdome" on Dec. 12, 2006. Click here to return to the main site.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.