If there's a better way to show your gravitas as a political leader than by acting like a piss-drunk prep-squad cheerleader, I don't know it

And as John Ferguson takes to the mic, honestly, all I have to say: “WELL, YOU ASKED FOR MORE FUCKING FRENCH, YOU GOT IT!” It seems cruel to rip this guy more since everyone on the continent has already ridiculed his offensively bad thrashing of the French language. It started with “Bomb Sawyer” for “Bon Soir” and went downhill from there. I was making an odd mixture of a giggle and a groan anytime a word of mimicked pidgin-french dribbled out of his lips.

We’re talking worse than Reform Party-level french.

Then he did a whole bunch of painfully awkward back-patting patriotism, including a forced “eh”, a word which none of us actually use unless we’re trying to seem drunk and harmless to Americans.

He said that athletes were the “wind beneath his wings“, without a hint of irony or anything that would forgive using such a hackneyed line.

He was trying to explain that Canadians were the most humble, polite people on Earth. Then he went on about how Canada is the best fucking country ever, and bragged about how we won at hockey. (Reminder: this is the official address to the planet after the Olympic closing ceremonies, not Coach’s Corner I’m describing.)

Then Jacques Rogge tried to pretend that he hadn’t just watched all of that butchery of the beautiful French tongue, and called the Vancouver games…. the best ever? Not quite. But “excellent, and very friendly games.” Jesus. Them’s fightin’ words.

And then, amid groans of “awww”, the games were closed. That’s it. The Olympics were done. Nothing to watch on your couch in your pyjamas. No more biathlon terminology to learn. No more Brian Williams telling you the current time in the Eastern time zone. No more goddamn “I Believe”. It’s over.

…

And now, LET THE INSANITY BEGIN!

PART 6: Heart of Gold

Hey hey, my my. Sidney Crosby can never die.

NEIL FUCKING YOUNG came out. NEIL. YOUNG. Anyways, he managed to keep the crowd’s attention using only the power of a harmonica, a guitar and a couple of monitors better than any million-dollar choreographed dancing-maple-leaf routine.

Then the torch went out, and he disappeared into the mysterious floor to hang out with Catriona Le May Doan and a mime.
If you’d have turned off your TV at that moment, you would’ve been treated to the perfect closing ceremonies.

But you didn’t, did you?

Part 7: CanCon regulations kick in.

Words can’t describe how awkward the next segment was. Basically, three famous Canadian actors of the 80s came out and did schtick from the Molson “I Am Canadian” ad. No seriously, the exact same stuff, excepting beating slightly-different dead-horses with the Canada jokes! The sort of stuff that would make you cringe if you heard these jokes told at a high school commencement, let alone the Olympics.

William Shatner talked about having sex in canoes. No, seriously. William Shatner, from Star Trek, talked about fucking, in a canoe. At the Olympic Winter Games Closing Ceremonies. Is this the best, or worst thing ever? It’s probably one or the other.

Catherine O’Hara – y’know, the mom from Home Alone? – told a bunch of Canada jokes that fell flat, but her old-lady cleavage made up for any flatness that might have occured. Her routine started with a cute curling sequence, got kind of awkwardly passive-aggressive, threw around some jokes that reached their pinnacle of popularity in the mid-40s (guests are like fish, they stink after a few days, HAW HAW GET IT, gotta send that one to Leno), and then she disappeared after telling what may be the Olympics’ first pee-pee joke.

And then MICHAEL J. FOX, who’s awesome, got stuck with some more beer-commercial patriotic schtick, the poor bastard.

Part 8: Oh my fuck what the fucking fuck, FUCK, what the FUCK

I haven't seen a beaver that big since my date with Rita MacNeil

I CAN’T EVEN DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. It would take WAY too long and WAY too many ridiculous adjectives.

MICHAEL BUBLE ON A HAT SINGING “MAPLE LEAF FOREVER”, INFLATABLE BEAVERS, SEXY MAPLE LEAF GIRLS, GIANT TABLE HOCKEY PLAYERS, SEXY MOUNTIES, FLYING MOOSE. It was like you took all the drugs in the world and watched a documentary about Canadian stereotypes.

CTV helpfully explained that Canada was “taking the piss”, you see, that this segment was meant to lightheartedly examine Canadian stereotypes. I have a feeling all of the other telecasts watching around the world didn’t get that memo, and now actually think Canada is a land of, well, over-Canadianness. I’ve never seen an Olympics do such a massive inside joke intended only for the home country. Could you imagine if the Beijing Closing Ceremonies were just a bunch of shout-outs to Chinese soap opera stars and regional inside-jokes that no one else on Earth got?

Also, a note from the Maclean’s liveblog about the song choice of “Maple Leaf Forever”: “It’s a great, great song — but isn’t it banned? “Wolfe the dauntless hero came?” Bloc MPs, to your microphones!”

The only thing that could’ve topped it on the CanCon scale would be if the Trailer Park Boys came out and just started telling every country there to fuck off.

Y’know the over-the-top musical number at the end of Producers, “Springtime for Hitler”? It was that, but with Canada instead of Nazis.

Part 9: SERIOUSLY?!

I then proceeded to predict pretty much all the big Canadian musical acts that would come up next. I was just kidding, of course – “oh, haha, what’s next, Simple Plan…. oh fffffu-AREYOUSERIOUS”, and just like that they popped up in a row like the Junos on acid. Meanwhile, athletes danced around on the floor, and quietly left through the exit which happened to be placed right below the stage, giving everyone an embarrassing view of athletes filtering out early.

NICKELBACK AND AVRIL LAVIGNE. ARE YOU SERIOUS.

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH. EVERY TIME I DO IT MAKES ME LAUGH.

I actually joked before the ceremonies that this would be who would show up, but I learned a powerful lesson: never underestimate the mind-fuck factor of the Vancouver organizing committee. As a sidenote, both of these acts have huge followings in non-English-speaking countries for some reason, so all the Eastern European  teenagers who make up the bulk of Olympic athletes were eating it up.

FUN FACT: this is where NBC actually cut away from their coverage to show the unwatchable reality show The Marriage Ref, which will be canceled in about 4 weeks. Seriously, right as Nickelback came on-stage they decided to cut the Closing Ceremonies in half – the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics they paid HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to cover – and they put an absolutely awful-looking reality show premiere right in the middle of it. Thank God every day that as a good Canadian, you get fantastic Olympic coverage on a plethora of channels and not comical NBC bullshit. Then again, they cut away from Nickelback, so maybe they had the right idea.

Anyways, then you had Alanis with her boobs almost coming out of her dress, there was Simple Plan struggling in an uphill fight for relevance, then… Hedley? Jesus, Hedley, really? No Tragically Hip? No motherfucking RUSH?

Honestly, I’d make fun of all of this shitty music in great detail, but I’m mentally exhausted. After every act, I just burst out laughing. SERIOUSLY, HEDLEY’S HERE? I just had no words left.

Canada had truly trolled the world by this point.

And, uh… there was some French faux-metal crap, Marie Mai or something, and K-Os, who’s awesome, but then there was some acid-washed b-boying, and fireworks, when suddenly…

It’s over.

Wait, what?

It’s OVER? It’s just DONE? One second, you had a breakdancer headspinning, and then, thennn… “Thanks for coming?” I mean, an anticlimactic ending is one thing, but at least it’s an ending of some sort. This didn’t even have an ending, it just… fizzled out! The fizzling is really the perfect ending for the perfect practical joke. This entire 3-hour affair was one long shaggy-dog story.

Was the goal to play increasingly bad music to test the limits of the athlete’s patience until they finally just decided to leave? I mean, making a captive audience watch Hedley is dropping a pretty big hint, like the host saying “boooy, sure is getting late” to the guest lying on his couch.

Welcome to Canada, world.

You got trolled.

I’m pretty sure Canada just trolled the world.

Sit back and think about what just happened. Our nation was given the task of putting together a 3-hour extravaganza to satisfy the varied tastes of a diverse planet.

We produced a series of bizarre inside jokes, shoulder-patting shout-outs, unintentional comedy and Avril Lavigne.

I’m convinced this was some sort of entirely-intentional form of prankery. It was Andy Kaufman via Kids In The Hall. We took the millenia-old Olympian tradition, the largest media and sporting event on earth, and turned it into what Royal Canadian Air Farce might have come up with for a “Canadian stereotypes” sketch in their unfunny years. All coated in a Velveeta-cheesy sheen of beer-commercial patriotic schtick, with a revolving door of “special guests” like a 70s variety show, and a series of moments that left a bewildered planet asking: seriously, what the fuck is up with Canada?

PART ONE: The Greatest Thing Ever.

Honestly, this was the most perfect thing ever done by anyone. Everyone I’ve talked to loved it. It made up for the Opening Ceremonies on its own, and was the perfect start to the show.

Couldn't they have gotten Red Green to fix the damn ice-penis thing with some duct tape?

If you missed it, they had the three ice-penises of the cauldron up, with the elusive broken fourth one still down. After some sparks and flying machinery, a mime (hey, they said they wanted more Quebecois content) pops out, plugs it in, Catriona Le May Doan comes out of a hole, and they light the thing. It was delightfully self-effacing humour. Only Canada could get away with starting their Closing Ceremonies by making fun of their Opening Ceremonies. Whoever thought it up should get a raise.

PART TWO: Early signs of trouble.

Some band I’ve never heard of called “Inward Eye” show up, seeming like a budget version of a U2 cover band, singing a song with lyrics that seemed to entirely consist of the words “Whoooaaooaoaoa, Vancouver.” Meanwhile, a bunch of high school student did a choreographed running-around sequence, with snowboards. It actually looked pretty cool, but after the lock-step Communist precision of Beijing, anything involving humans moving simultaneously will look like a sloppy, haphazard orgy.

Then they trooped in the Native chiefs, with their silly, fanciful Indian names like “Bill Williams”, along with Harper (SEE, I JUST REFERENCED A CANADIAN POLITICIAN, you can’t claim I don’t write enough about politics on this “politics blog”) and Gordon Campbell, who was fucking embarrassing the whole time. I mean, I get it, we won at hockey today, it’s exciting, you’re probably still drunk, but you’re a PREMIER, and you’re on WORLDWIDE TELEVISION. Don’t stand up and wave a gigantic flag you somehow smuggled into the VIP box inches away from the faces of foreign dignitaries, you look like an ass.

Then a bunch of Kidz Bop drop-outs mimed and force-smiled their way through an agonizing sugary-sweet upbeat version of O Canada, which at least wasn’t as bad as the arrangement at the Opening Ceremonies, but wasn’t as good as, say, the actual arrangement, the way the song always fucking goes.

PART THREE: There’s athletes at the Olympics?

Then they marched out all of the athletes in a confused huddle, with Canada looking sharp in vintage caribou-adorned knit sweatervests, and Germany looking like neon LSD vomit.

Joannie was our flag-bearer, because… y’know.

John Morris was there too. <3 <3 <3

After we watched all the athletes slowly shuffle their way to their seats after having pointed their camera-phone at every possible physical direction, we got a pretty painful musical number. Nikki “Overstayed your welcome, kid” Yanofsky, some chick who I’m told [by my mom] was a winner of the canceled show Canadian Idol, and a dude who I’ve never heard of badly pretending to play guitar. (I was informed by the NBC telecast that he was Native, so… what, I’m not suggesting that, he was there just because he… I mean, I’m sure he’s a great… just that, with the…) They droned through the sort of Up-With-People pop drivel that appeals to no one of any age, and THEN THE PARTY STARTED.

PART Я: IN SOVIET RUSSIA, OLYMPICS CLOSE YOU!

Must... crush... capitalism...

Just to make Canada’s sloppiness look bad, we got treated to Glorious Mother Russia coming out to annihilate all of our brains with a precise, choreographed, sensory-overloading preview of Sochi 2014. A choir came out to sing what seemed like the 25-minute extended-cut remix of the Russian national anthem, which is a spine-tingling tune if there ever was one. Then, as Mounties raised the Russian flag over Canadian soil (and Cold War-era baby boomers had a stroke at the sight of their old nightmares realized), we were treated to an onslaught of Russia-overload that reminded me of the now-dated Simpsons episode where Russia switches back to the USSR, leading to parade-bears becoming tanks and Lenin crushing his glass tomb.

There were bowling cosmonauts, ballerinas, orchestras, supermodels, some sort of freaky modernist Madame Butterfly rendition, and the combined powers of Olympics failures Evgeni Plushenko and Alex Ovechkin (combined nose weight: 3.7 kg.) It made me want to drink some vodka.

Oh, and there’s SO MUCH MORE TO COME!

[CONTINUED IN PART 2! TOO MUCH FOR ONE POST TO CONTAIN!]

As always, attractiveness will be judged using the terminology of skip’s sweeping calls, ranging from “Right Off!” on the low end to a variety of hoarsely-shouted variations on “Hard!” and “Hurry!” on the high end.

TEAM CANADA. Skip: Cheryl Bernard, Third: Susan O'Connor, Second: Carolyn Darbyshire, Lead: Cori Bartel

Oh, you KNOW we gotta start things off with a HURRY HARD. / Alright, just clean now. / Right off guys, right offfff. / Ehh… clean it? Yeah, clean.

TEAM CHINA. Skip: Wang Bingyu, Third: Liu Yin, Second: Yue Qingshuang, Lead: Zhou Yan, Alternate: Liu Jinli

Right ooooooff. / Alright, gotta go now, looks light. / Keep going hard guys, HARD! / Whoa! Whooooa! / I, um… maybe? Huh? I’m leaving this one up to the sweepers.

TEAM DENMARK. Lead: Camilla Jensen, Third: Denise Dupont, Fourth: Madeleine Dupont, Skip who throws second for some reason: Angelina Jensen

HARD HARD, but watch out for that bit of debris on the lip of the rock. / Yeaaah, keep going hard guys. / Hard! Really hard! PUSH IT! / FINISH HARD! HURRYYYYY!

TEAM GERMANY. Skip: Andrea Schöpp, Third: Monika Wagner, Second: Melanie Robillard, Lead: Stella Heiß, Alternate: Corinna Scholz

Whoa guys. Whoa. Whoa-whoa-whoa-whooooa. / Whoooooa. NEVER. / YES! HARD NOW! RIGHT ON IT HARD! / KEEP GOING HARD! / HUUUURRRYYYYYYY!

TEAM GREAT BRITAIN. Third: Jackie Lockhart, Skip: Eve Muirhead, Lead: Lorna Vevers, Second being mauled by her teammates: Kelly Wood

Alright, sweep it, yep! / HARD. HARD! HARD HARD HARD HAAAAARRRRRRD!! / Whoa, ease off a bit guys, it’s a bit heavy… / GO. HARD. NOW. I SWEAR TO GOD, HURRY HARD. IF YOU’RE NOT SWEEPING RIGHT NOW YOU’RE FIRED OFF THE TEAM.

TEAM JAPAN. (Top Left) Skip: Moe Meguro, Second: Mari Motohashi, (Bottom Left) Third: Anna Ohmiya, (Right) Lead: Kotomi Ishizaki

(Top left): Alright, go hard. Let’s see some sweeping, hard. / Yep! Keep going guys. HARD. / (Bottom left): Alright, ease off a bit guys, eeeeasy… / (Right): ALRIGHT GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT HARD. HARRRRD!

TEAM RUSSIA. Lead: Ekaterina Galkina, Second: Nkeiruka Ezekh, Skip: Ludmila Privivkova, Third: Anna Sidorova (NOTE: Used to be Olga Jarkova, but she was replaced by Anna at the last second), Alternate: Margarita Fomina

YES. HARD. / HARD. HARD. / HARD HARD FOR GOD’S SAKE WHY AREN’T YOU SWEEPING HARD. HURRRYYYY. / SERIOUSLY, SWEEP. IF YOU STOP SWEEPING I WILL SHOOT YOU. I BROUGHT A GUN. I’M ABOUT TO GO BIATHLON ON THIS SHIT. YES I’M SERIOUS. / DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID? NEVER. STOP. SWEEPING.

(Note about Team Russian Supermodel: Originally, their vice was Olga Jarkova, seen at the right. They replaced her with the more supermodel-esque Anna Sidorova, whom I crudely cut-and-pasted over Olga’s face in the image above. Did the Honourable Russian Commissar Of Sports For The Motherland request a last-minute switcheroo before Vancouver to get more media spotlight? MapleRag Exclusive Bombshell Revealed!)

TEAM SWEDEN. Lead: Anna Le Moine, Second: Cathrine Lindahl, Third: Eva Lund, Skip: Anette Norberg

Ehhh… sweep. Absolutely sweep. I was a bit hesitant with the line call, but yeah, definitely hard. / Off. Off. Nope. Noooope. / Uhhhh… yep, alright. Go hard now! / Jesus. Uh, off. Right off. Right, off. (Bonus: Here’s this team appearing in a heavy metal video!)

TEAM SWITZERLAND. Lead: Janine Greiner, Second: Carmen Küng, Third: Carmen Schäfer, Skip: Mirjam Ott

ABSOLUTELY HARD, I DON’T CARE WHAT THE SWEEPERS SAY. HARD. / HARD HARD HARD HARD. / HARDHARDHARDHARDHARD. / Snowboarder Shaun White, what are you doing on the ice?!

TEAM U! S! A! U! S! A! Third: Allison Pottinger, Second: Nicole Joraanstad, Skip: Debbie McCormick, Lead: Natalie Nicholson

Yep, hard guys, hurry hard! / AN EMPHATIC AND UNIVERSAL HAAAARD. / Clean now, just clean. / … Y’know what, sweep it hard, but… I wouldn’t admit to any of my buddies I wanted to sweep it. It just looks like it needs sweeping.

__________________

OVERALL WINNERS: Russia. Was this even fair? They assembled a team of models who may or may not be able to curl.

Honourable mention goes to Denmark. Second honourable mention goes out to Switzerland, since they all look pretty good in the photo above, even though it’s clearly a publicity shot that’s been airbrushed more than a Penthouse centrefold. Third honourable mention goes to the Scottish lasses of Great Britain, because you’re an emotionless robot if you’re not in love with that photo of them.

Happy curling!

While the real tournament is still ongoing as the provinces battle for supremacy on the ice, the real battle has already been decided off the ice: who the hottest curlers in the tournament are. Is it crude, ignorant and prejudiced to rate professional athletes solely based on their physical appearance just because they’re female? Of course. But we’re not a curling blog, so deal with it. (We’re apparently a politics blog, but, y’know, PROROGUED, so we gotta find our news where we can.) For the record, this would be your Male Editor writing, your Female Editor objected to this piece, but when offered the opportunity to rate male curlers based on their hotness at the upcoming Tim Horton’s Brier, she said “all male curlers are disgusting.” Who’s sexist now?!

The relative hotness of curlers will go from left to right, and just so that only real curling fans will be able to follow along, their hotness will be represented by skips’ sweeping calls, ranging from HURRY HARD (Attractive!) to WHOAAA RIGHT OFF (Not so attractive.)

HURRY HARD HARD HAAARD! / Yep, hard! / Cleeeeean. / Yep! Hurray now!

Yep! HARD! / Just clean, just clean. / Haaaard. / HURRY!

Whooooaaaa. / YES SWEEP HAAAARD! / KEEP GOING GUYS, HARD HARD / Alright, hard now, finish it.

Alright, go hard now, but keep an eye on it… / Whoa, right off. / YES. HARD NOW. HARD. / Right off, whoaaaaaa.

Ehhhh, keep it clean, I guess…. / Yep. Sweep now. / Yep! Yep! Real hard guys! / Whoa whoa, just clean now.

Ouaaiii, ‘ard, ‘ard / ‘URRYYYY / Allez-y, ‘ard / Nooon, non…

Right off, right ooooff. / Yep, alright. Go now. / YES! HARD! HAAAAAAARD! / KEEP GOING HURRYYYY!

Whoooaaa, guys. / Easy, alright, go now… / Yes, yes HARD. / Eeeeeasy.

Yep! Hard guys! / Hard! Hard! KEEP GOING! / Hurry guys! / HAAAAAARRRRRRD!!!!!!!!

Alright, hard now. / Whoa, whoa. / Yep, alright, sweep now. / DID IT JUST PICK?!

Eh… hard? I mean, off. Hard. Off. I dunno. Sweepers, what do you think? / Yeeeeah, better sweep it. / Whoa for weight. / Alright, finish it off, hard now.

Yep, hard now. / HARDER. / HAAAAAAAAAARD. / HARD! HARD! HURRYYYYYYY!

__________

Overall winner: NEWFOUNDLAND.

Special mentions to Alberta, Ontario and Canada.

I’m not proud of the things I have to do for this blog.

GM Brian Burke announcing the departure of Tony Clement to the US Congress at a joint press conference

In a move designed to “shake up” the stagnant world of the Canadian parliament, Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke announced a blockbuster trade deal today to send Parliament stars Tony Clement and Martha Hall Findlay to the United States Congress in exchange for prospects Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-ND), Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and a second-round draft pick.

“We’re really looking to rebuild and inject some new talent. I’m not afraid to shake things up. The media probably thought a guy like Clement wasn’t moveable, being Minister of Industry and all. Y’know what? Titles don’t mean jack to me”, the outspoken Burke told a media huddle outside of Parliament. “From what I’ve seen from Sandlin and Jordan, they’ve got the kind of grit, tenacity and hustle that I like in a government representative. Sure, people will question my moves, but let me tell you, this group of MP’s needed a wake-up call.”

Tony Clement, now serving as a freshman congressman representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District, said the move came as a shock. “I really didn’t think I was going anywhere, I had time left on my contract with Parliament and I was a Cabinet Minister and all, but look, that’s the past. I’m looking forward to working with Congress, they’re a great organization with some great players, and I look forward to playing on the Ohio Delegation line with guys like [John] Boehner and Kucy [Dennis Kucinich].”

“Look, it’s a real loss to lose Tony and Martha, but that’s just the dynamics of the market,” said current Parliament captain Stephen Harper. “I’m looking forward to playing with Sandlin and Jordan, they’re both classy, gritty players with a ton of potential who can work the corners in a legislative session and won’t be afraid to throw the gloves down in Question Period.”

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a 5′6″, 39-year-old out of Aberdeen, South Dakota who will now be the Member of Parliament for the Toronto riding of Willowdale, said she was looking forward to playing with Parliament. “I’ve been learning about the franchise, the history, y’know, checking out the Wikipedia page about Canadian government ever since I heard about the trade”, she told reporters. “It seems like there’s a lot of shouting, so, I’m looking forward to that. Also, why the hell’s my new office locked? Anyone know what the hell ‘prorogue’ means?”

“I think both organizations can benefit from this trade. Congress is picking up a couple of seasoned veterans as they gear for a healthcare-playoff push, and Parliament’s getting some great prospects as they work on rebuilding,” Burke added. Asked if he was considering more trade moves, possibly with European parliamentary bodies, Burke said he “didn’t want any of those pantywaist Euro crybabies prancing around.”