FINE AMERICA, WE GIVE UP ALREADY, EH!

A few weeks ago, Canada lost something it held very dear. The US beat Canada 6-5 in overtime at the World Junior Hockey Championships. Canada had won the tournament a zillion years in a row, they were favourites (as always) (also, note spelling of "favourites"), and they lost. They lost to America, who, with the exception of one or two mid-level, Canada-adjacent states, do not give a shit about hockey. I, like most of my folk, was flabbergasted. Yes, we actually use the word "flabbergasted." How could this happen? Everyone in Canada is obsessed with hockey. In the States, only Minnesotans care about hockey. Every other state has better weather and better sports to play. How the hell did they beat us? Then I saw this video. Canada, for all its love of hockey, has only that – love of hockey. We just love the game, and hope it's well played and enjoyed. America doesn't give a shit about hockey – but holy fuck do they give a shit about winning. As the University of Alaska at Fairbanks demonstrates, they like winning so much, they're willing to summon giant, murderous bears to destroy icebreakers, drop bombs in volcanoes,

blow up the fucking planet

, and fly to an interstellar ice rink where they can win by forfeit

because every other team was fucking killed

. For the record, courtesy of the fearsome Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (named after the bus line by which people can leave the city of Sault Ste. Marie), here is the most menacing hockey intro video a Canadian team has ever come up with: Canada may love hockey, but we're still a nation of dweebs. America could care less about hockey – they've got baseball, basketball, football, war, Summer Olympics, and tax cuts. This is what Colonel Kurtz learned: it doesn't matter who you are or how good you are, it's how much you want it. America, you want it more. Ku-fucking-dos.