A Stunning Collapse

Yesterday, the Vancouver Canucks embarassed themselves. The fans of the Vancouver Canucks embarassed themselves.

But nobody should be more embarassed than those who insisted, even as downtown Vancouver was being destroyed, that this bunch of diving, conniving losers were "Canada's Team" and that the Canadian thing to do was to cheer for them. We can put Dalton McGuinty's war room right at the top of that list:



"He's not on our side," they said. Yeah, Tim Hudak is definitely not on the losing side.

Idiotic cheap shots from the Liberals are nothing new. Attempts to provoke outrage and suggestions of disloyalty are a dime a dozen when they're concerned. But this now hilarious-in-hindsight video made me angry.

I was angry because of the implication that the Canucks, by virtue of being the only Canadian team left in the playoffs, were automatically our side, and if anyone put forth a reasoned defence of the Bruins -like Tim Hudak did- it became OK in the minds of people like the moron who slapped that video together to marginalize them. For both the Liberals and the Canucks, it was the same line of thinking; there is one right way here, and it's our way.

And very much like the Liberals, we were expected to support the Canucks no matter what they did. Biting other players? Diving? Playing a goalie that was clearly in no shape to play, over and over? Total lack of offence? Rioting when you lost? Sure, give us more. We don't want those Americans to win, even if they deserve to win.

What was all the more incredible was that the fans knew the Canucks were blowing it, and were clearly dissatisfied with how they played, but even so, forced their anger down, hid sighs of relief behind cheers when the Canucks squeaked out wins, and told all of us that we'd be sorry for doubting the home team. Well, guess what: all that stiff-upper-lip amounted to nothing, and when that realization hit home for Canucks fans, they lost their minds on a grand scale.

Of course, that's out there, on the Left Coast. Imagine what's going to happen here in Ontario when all the Liberals who've choked down their hatred of Dalton for so long realize that it was all in vain.

Some Liberals have already reached the tipping point and can't swallow any more delusion, as Bob Hepburn told us today in the Star. He says that former Liberal MP's Gerard Kennedy, Mark Holland, and Dan McTeague won't run for Dalton. Just to be clear, those three are the guy who thought he'd make Stephane Dion leader of the Liberals,  the guy who sat on confidential documents for a year and then released them, claiming all the while he had no idea where they came from, and the guy who was basically allowed to sit within the Liberal Party so they could try to make so-cons think twice about voting Conservative, respectively. All three of these top-quality horse manure salesmen took one look at Dalton's operation and said, "No thank you."

Tim Hudak picked the unconventional choice, braved the criticism, and was proven right in the end. And in this upcoming election, he will do so again.

(Oh, and, um, Go Leafs Go! Next year, baby!)