Canada
Peter McMartin
Just when did the U.S. replace Russia as our worst enemy? asked Peter McMartin in The Vancouver Sun. At the recent World Junior Hockey Championship, which Canada hosted, Canadian fans greeted the American team with chants of “U.S. sucks!” Had the Americans been playing against a Canadian team, you could maybe attribute the rudeness to the home fans’ “overexuberance.” Only the young Americans got booed no matter who they were playing. As the Americans’ unpopularity became more and more apparent, they began looking forward to playing the Russians, thinking they would finally get the benefit of “the home crowd.” Those “poor, trusting boobs.” Canadians, it turns out, would rather root for “a country that, not 20 years ago, was chiefly known for its vicious, soul-crushing despotism” than for their ally and neighbor America. Our behavior is all the more embarrassing for being directed at “a bunch of children,” mostly 17-year-olds who can’t even vote and are in no way responsible for their government’s actions in Iraq. “There are legitimate places for expressions of anti-Americanism. But I don’t think a hockey rink is one of them.”
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