Why is it that beating the Americans is so important to us?

THE ARMCHAIR MAYOR (COLUMN) — Beating Americans is important to us Canucks but we don’t do much analysis of why. It just is.

Whenever we do think about it, we picture the ugly American as a crude lout with a gun on his hip and a pit bull named Bubba.

It was, admittedly, pure bliss when our Canadian women came back to beat the U.S. in Olympics hockey, and our men’s team hung on for a 1-0 victory yesterday.

One could philosophize about competition being symbolic of life in general and all that, but the simple fact is if we lose to Sweden tomorrow the nation won’t go into mourning the way it would have if we’d lost the women’s final or men’s semi-final to the States.

I’m as guilty as the next person of having unkind thoughts about Americans from time to time, but they aren’t such bad people, they really aren’t. I’ve known a lot of them. Lived there for three years and liked most of them.

Sure, they have crazy gun laws. They have one too many downs in football and think they invented basketball, which, of course, they didn’t.

We never much cared about basketball anyway.  That’s why we gave it to the Americans and stole curling from the Scots (see Saturday Morning Editorial).

Maybe we don’t like Americans because they’re getting almost as good as we are at hockey, which is truly our game. At least it was invented here — the fact it was actually invented by British soldiers while they were stationed in Canada in the early 1800s is a mere detail.

But I digress.

We’ve done well by Americans. Yes, we had to run them out of Canada in 1812 when they strayed over the line, but they saved our arse in a couple of world wars. They keep us supplied in cars, electronics, fruits and veggies in winter, furniture, jet airplanes (when we can afford them) and just about anything made out of plastic that isn’t already made in China.

In return, we give them oil, space station parts, wood, fresh water, beer, our doctors, a lot of jealousy, and Justin Bieber.

Americans are good people living in a country with problems, just like us. What really bugs us is that they don’t know we’re alive. I doubt if they noticed we won those hockey games. They probably don’t even know who came second in the ice dance.

Or maybe I just missed it when NBC made special mention.

Yet, Americans are always there for us when we need them. They would go to war for us, even though we haven’t always gone to war for them. But if you Google “what has U.S. done for Canada” you know what comes up? Those two hockey games.

AROUND THE TOWN — Enjoyed talking with school trustee Gerald Watson about the upcoming public meeting on the closure of Stuart Wood. I’m not optimistic it will be kept open as a school and it’s bound to be an election issue this fall. By which time it will be too late to do much about it…. Changed the domain for The Armchair Mayor News to armchairmayor.ca this week…. Coffeed with Steve Puhallo of the North Shore BIA at Reubin’s Diner on Tranquille Road. We soon wandered from NSBIA issues into politics, so it was a good conversation…. Seen in passing, City staffer Dave Freeman jaywalking across First Avenue. Technically, he was crossing against a pedestrian light. It’s OK, Dave, everybody does it…. Next up on Coffee With the Armchair Mayor for CBC Radio is Ray Chatelin next week. Ray is on the arts commission — topic du jour is planning for a new performing arts centre, which unfortunately seems to be getting bogged down again as political will grows anemic in an election year.

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