The Tin-Eared Games: Can We Get A Refund?

Ask anyone who is savvy about lululemon athletica® clothing (that would be almost every woman in our lives) and they’ll tell you two things: 1) The Vancouver-based firm make high- quality stuff with their yoga-based activity wear. And 2) They’re not afraid to charge for it. In short, capitalism.

But these are not the salad days for capitalism. And so the choice of posh lululemon— the clothier to Wokedom— as the official clothing supplier to the 2022 Canadian Olympic team is getting the Tin Ear Award from many who see the nation’s best athletes as something more than a clothes rack for sport couture.

Yes, the outfits looked terrific in the parade of nations and on the medal podium. But then reporters did a little comparison shopping between what lululemon has created for the team and what HBC, the previous official clothier, produced for earlier teams. In particular, they highlighted the prices between HBC’s iconic wool mittens of Olympics past ($10) to lululemon’s hi-tech hand covering ($68). Lululemon’s gloves look grand but who’s got $68 for a souvenir of these jinxed Olympics?

The $48 touque produced for the Beijing-bound also caught a broadside as did the absence of a children’s line of Olympic gear— a popular feature when HBC and Roots produced the clothing. Begging the question: What was the Canadian Olympic Committee thinking when it awarded lululemon the exclusive clothing rights? Are they so tin-eared they couldn’t see that affordability for all but the moneyed might be a criticism?

But this dissonance is par for the corrupted 2022 Games. Despite the hideous Chinese Potemkin propaganda of the event, the kidnapping of Canadians and threats from Chairman Xi against anyone dissenting from his re-creation of Hitler’s 1936 Berlin charade, China has gotten its PR moment. Evil has claimed the gold.

Listen, the Canadians athletes worked their asses off for this chance. We understand that the 1980 Olympic boycott of the Moscow Games hurt a generation of young people who just wanted to compete. But the abysmal 2022 TV ratings show that many devoted fans of the Olympics, including us, are simply looking away. We wish the Canadians well. We are just not going to be passengers on this globalist bus of shame.

But corporate Canada is still gung-ho for the Games. Their unapologetic branding is all over the TV product. The glib commercials, the sentimental odes. Sure they have contracts and global obligations. But the hear no evil/ see no evil tone of the presentation is repugnant. We should just be seeing raw footage of the events, like CPAC, without the gloss or the hype being adorned on the Communists PR coup.

And when the last Canadian has competed? Fold the tent and go home without a farewell parade of nations. Leave this rotten corpse to stink in Xi’s back yard.

Which brings us to another dead Olympic parrot: Women’s hockey. Depending on your politics it’s either an aspirational moment for world feminism or a one-sided denial of the spirit of competition. Rosie DiManno’s recent column in the Toronto Star calling the spade a four sided-shovel revived this argument.

Since becoming an Olympic medal sport in 1998 women’s hockey has become a pitiful parody of competition. While the goal was for the Olympics to inspire more nations to take up the sport, it remains a two-nation slaughter of the innocents, propped up as political theatre for the globalist equity class that likes things that look proper rather than work properly.

If any of the other nations present in Beijing— to say thing of ones not present in China— have narrowed the gap between themselves and the Canadians and Americans it will take a micron microscope to measure the progress. Part of the problem is how far the two rivals have taken the quality of their game. The skill and drama of their competition makes excellent TV.

The criticism of the Olympic farce should not be taken as a criticism of them. But those promoting the idea that some day, some way, a third or fourth contender might arise are charlatans promoting a hopeless project. A good queen is poorly served by poor soldiers and this regent is disgraced by the shadow sport going on in Beijing.

Stage an annual showdown best-of-three televised event in prime time between Canada and the U.S. It should get killer ratings. Tell the other teams to try luge or biathlon. They’ll be happier than watching Canada’s shooters snipe relentless at them.

But for most the motto of the Games is now Lower, Nastier, Costler. And the world can live without that.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx