They beat us in last year’s Grey Cup, their home prices are rising faster than ours, their economy is growing more than ours, and now it turns out that Saskatchewan is destroying us at the Olympics as well.
A tip of the protective headgear to the Freep’s Mary Agnes Welch for pointing out that the Wheat Province has 12 athletes (she says 11, but the Cdn Olympic site says 12) competing at the Beijing Olympics, while Manitoba has just two.
For those following along at home, Team Manitoba consists of rower Janine Hanson and archer Jason Lyon. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan has athletes competing in baseball, softball (2), rowing (2), water polo (2), pole vault, swimming, diving, judo and road cycling.
Maybe the billboards are right, maybe there are “Opportunities Next Door.” Oh well, at least the Roughies finally dropped a game last night. Losers.
New Brunswick (3) and Nova Scotia (7) also have more athletes at these games than Manitoba, but we’re keeping pace with Yukon and PEI, so that’s something.
Godddamn it.
Here I thought I was sitting at the Center of it All and now I find out Opportunity is Next door. What the fck.
Ok Sigh, repeat 10 times, Winnipeg is a World Class City, Winnipeg is a World Class City, Winnipeg is a World Class City, ahhh, starting to feel better now.
Shhhhhhhh.
We don’t talk about these things. Just like we don’t talk about the buddy from back home who said these exact words when I ran into him on Sunday:
“You know what? People told us [his teacher wife and himself] that we would have such a crazy cost of living in Calgary and such, but we’re doing so much better than we did in Winnipeg last year, it’s not even funny.”
In fairness, Canada’s most decorated Olympic athlete is a Manitoban – Cindy Klassen, a Manitoban who had to leave Manitoba to get great coaching and decent facilities.
Perhaps cutting Phys. Ed. to save a few pennies to pay to the teachers’ union might have been better spent keeping youth sports programs & facilities.
So Sam,
Who was it that cut phys ed?
Who cares who it was?
@Sam, Brian — Or perhaps funding to reinstate grade 11 & 12 phys-ed would have been better spent on supporting organized amateur sport rather than forcing slackers to play a few games of floor hockey per week?
Point made Mr. Frog!
The larger point is that you don’t get Olympic medals without programming that enable kids to play sports then get good enough to be competitive.