For years, perhaps since the dawn of time, perhaps since the permafrost thinned out enough to allow human habitation in the wilds of Canada, one company has been responsible for broadcasting the Olympics.
That company was the government-sponsored Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). During the last several Olympic games, CBC featured catchy theme songs, a kitschy host who wore ridiculous sweaters – especially during the ever-so-Canadian Winter Olympics, and a dedication to showing Olympic coverage 24/7 while the games were taking place.
You see, we here at Canadaland studios are not sports fanatics. Oh, we like the CFL and NHL well enough, but not so much that we really know who plays for what team, or how exactly every rule in the game works. You want to pull on that guy's face mask, or slash him across the wrist to get the puck? Seems fair to us.
But the Olympics are something else entirely, something special. They are the pinnacle of amateur sport, of athletes at their peak. We're still not pleased that some professional athletes are allowed to compete, most notably in basketball, but basketball is perhaps the most awful sport in the world to watch, next to Northeastern Russian Seal Racing, so it's not really that big a deal. We can live with whiny professional athletes if it means that we get to see Olympic sports.
The Olympics make us a bit crazy. When they come on, so does our TV, and it stays on all day every day. We want sports all the time when the Olympics are on, sort of like that guy in your office who always wants a piece of cake, and you're like "dude, could you be any fatter?", but you can't really say anything because he's the bosses nephew.
We are the bosses nephew in this case, and our craving for the cakey goodness that is the Olympics only happens once every 2 years, so leave us alone already you big mean jerks – it's a glandular problem!
The point.
Is that CBC did a great job of giving us Olympic coverage of even the most obscure sports every minute of every day during the Olympics. 2am and you want to know how the cross-country freestyle pairs sudden-death biathlon went? Just turn to CBC. 9pm and you want to see the highlight of that figure skater who did the "triple flip double axle big-rig"? CBC's got you covered.
Sadly, the right to cover the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was lost by CBC to another company, CTV, in a bidding war. They managed to harangue the host of the CBC Olympics team into joining them, so we had moderate hopes, at least.
It was awful. The entire two weeks of Olympic coverage played like one giant, broken high-light reel. There were pre-event interviews, post-event dissections and profiles of the athletes. There were panel discussions and very strange conversations with minor celebrities, Canadian and American, for no reason.
Oh, the sports? Yeah not so much. Results of events that didn't feature a prominent Canadian were simply reported in a 2-minute sound byte, and the ones that did feature our athletes showed precious little else.
And the sweaters? Gone. Replaced instead by Armani suits, slicked-back hair, and some extra-douchy announcer we'd never seen before. It was a mockery of true Olympic coverage, which highlights skill, focus, and the fact that Canadians have too much time on their hands.
So get ready CTV, a letter is coming, on behalf of Canadians everywhere who know that its not about how many medals Canada wins, or how many times the Americans screw up. It's about camaraderie, spectacle and true emotion.
And beer. Beer is good too.
Oh, and chips.
Look, the point is – CTV you suck and read our letter.
Beer.
