October 1, 2000

Olympic Fever...can you get a shot for that now?

October 1, 2000

As the Sydney Olympics are drawing to a close, we here at Paperless feel a little unfulfilled with what has transpired as we’ve slept for the past two weeks. While waking up to find that the Lithuanian Dream Team almost defeated the stacked American team that has been cleaning house at every Olympiad that it has been sent to since the rules were changed to allow superstar professional athletes to pretend they’re “amateurs” for two weeks every four years was a delight in its own, we continue to wake to the pissing and moaning of media types at Canada’s poor Olympic showing.

On a brighter note, how about that Vince Carter?!? Did you see the leap that everyone’s talking about, where he took the term “leapfrog” literally in the game against France (sorry to all the French who are currently saying “tabernacle!!!” to me, I couldn’t resist the bad pun)?

He plays for Toronto…he’s a…

…an American.

But he plays for Toronto!

So, our little bit of national pride has been swiped from us by a minor technicality, but at least we still have our world-class trampolinists (is that what they’re called?). Even though Surin and Bailey didn’t leave their mark on this year’s Olympics, they had good excuses. Now if we could only do something about that ridiculous ban on Sudafed, maybe Donovan would have been able to complete in this year’s events.

When you stop and take a look at what’s behind the lackluster performance of our athletes, you needn’t look any further than our own elected government. Although we expect, or dare I say demand, that these amateur athletes who devote their entire existence to training for Olympic glory, we tend to forget about them for the 208 weeks between Olympic games. We tend to overlook minor details like the amount of money countries like Russia and China pump into support of their athletes.

Russia, a country where their great version of capitalism has left more people standing in breadlines than that “evil Communist regime” ever managed to make its people suffer, can still manage to invest heavily in its athletes that will allow the world to see what a “super power” they still are for two weeks every four years. China, a country with over a billion people, may have some minor flaws in departments like “human rights”, but they manage to take home a wealth of Olympic glory every time!

However, Canada, the greatest country in the world (the U.N. told me so), continues to allow its amateur athletes to live on less money than your typical welfare mother! $18,000 a year! Canadian!

Sure, Canadian athletes have the potential to reap huge benefits in advertising revenues if they DO find success in the Olympics, but for the majority of them, this extra income isn’t even an option. How many trampoline-oriented Adidas ads have you seen?

What we need to do is level the playing field and propose some new Olympic events for the 2008 games that almost certainly will be held right here in Toronto. Since our athletes are forced to live like welfare mothers, let’s do our part as a compassionate and understanding nation and propose some welfare mother oriented events?

	The 4x100 welfare cheque cashing relay could be held in Toronto’s financial district, complete with TTC subway vigilantes, a maze of Yonge Street bicycle couriers and cabbies, former members of “Kids in the Hall”, the busker who sings “If you’re happy and you know it…” endlessly outside the World’s Largest Bookstore, and Moe Berg, of course. The event could end up at the TD Bank’s main Toronto branch, although additional gold medals would need to be awarded to those who bypassed the entire banking industry and simply spent their cheques at the Loblaws store on Yonge Street.
	Infant-holding subway rushes during rush hour would allow Olympic viewers to see why Canadian football would be even better than it is if we allowed mothers to rush the endzone while carrying their youngsters. Such performances have not been seen in years by Toronto Argo fans and would most certainly be appreciated.
	An Olympic cycling rally, entitled none other than “Tour de Horton’s” could be held. Contestants would have to cycle to various Tim Horton’s locations, drink a double-double, then proceed to the next one. Of course, all participants would be obligated to have a smoke with their coffee, should they find a Tim’s that features one of those handy-dandy “smoke solariums”.

After all, we’ve catered to “special interests” before. After realizing that snowboarding isn’t fun or entertaining without the assistance of marijuana, we allowed its use in Olympic snowboarding. After realizing that cocaine is an expected part of daily life for anyone with enough money to own a horse, we allowed this as well (providing the horse isn’t partaking in the lines himself).

For those of you who are starting to feel as though I’m picking on people, I propose a new Olympic sport for the winter Olympics which does nothing to cramp the stereotyped lifestyle of any group of individuals. Actually, it is really an extension of an already beloved winter Olympic event, the biathlon.

Since everyone knows that things TRIPLE are one better than BI, Paperless proposes a winter TRIATHLON, where gun-toting skiers are forced to REGISTER their weapons with the Canadian government prior to firing them.

Until next time, ponder the following:

§ What’s so wrong with KARAOKE being an Olympic event?

§ Was it really Ross Rebaglaiti’s SWEATER that failed the drug test for pot?

§ Shouldn’t it really be called a TRAMPOPOLINE?

§ Isn’t it ironic that both NBC and CBC have Brian Williams’es at the Olympics?

§ How flattering is it that Americans are suddenly taking an interest in Canadian television when it comes to Olympic coverage?