Canadian Women Rule

From Google this evening

News results for Olympics + Canadian women's hockey - View today's top stories
	Column: No Apologizing in Women's Hockey - Yahoo! News - 23 minutes ago Carnage on Ice Comes to the Olympics - Washington Post - 12 hours ago Canadian coach fires back - Edmonton Sun - 16 hours ago

I find myself gobsmacked at the swirling controversy over the Canadian Women's Olympic hockey team's success.

Of course Canadian women kick ass when it comes to hockey. That's a no brainer. There is a reason USA and Canada have dominated this Olympic sport since it's inception. We've got the land, the snow the history of hockey.

Hockey is in our blood. It's a right of passage, and If you don't believe me, consider this. I HATE hockey. Hate it. It's unfair really, it's not the game I hate so much as the idiocy that often surounds it. (Scandal, violence, stupidity, scandal, and more violence) In fact, when hockey comes on the tv, I exit the room. I stay away from pubs during stanley cup playoffs, and run like a spooked jaguar from big, burly, beer drinking bruisers with painted faces and hockey jersey's.
But tell my team to go easy on the competition? Outrageous!

It seems that due to the Blow Out wins by Canada so far, there isn't any real competition outside of the Canada & US teams, people are worried that boredom might set in, people may stop watching and put the Olympic status of the sport at risk. The Canadian fan based responce? "Uh let in a few more goals eh? For diplomacy's sake!

What a quinessential Canadian thing to advise. We are less concerned with winning and more concerned with whether or not we are liked. No wonder we keep giving our resources away and have such a hard time tracking down and kicking out illegal entrants. After all we don't want to make any one feel bad.

Personally, I think this should be seen internationally as a challange to other countries to support women's and girls hockey programs from the pee-wee to professional levels.

And as for the Olympic comittee, would it hurt ya to demand a country demonstrate a certain skill level before automatically accepting them as an Olympic team? If a country isn't up to par, it shouldn't be qualified.
The number of teams may be seriously reduced until enough countries are proficient enough in the sport to compete, but it'll make for a helluva lot more interesting games.