In the history of the modern Olympic Games only one host nation had failed to win a gold medal , an accomplishment so nice and accommodating that it could only be Canada that pulled it off – twice.
If you were being diplomatic you’d call that an answer to a good trivia question. If you were being honest, you’d just call it pathetic. When you factor in wealth and opportunity, and ignore games involving ice and pucks, Canada was arguably the least successful sports country on Earth.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]However, Canadians – at least those born before the 1970s – didn’t seem to care. The country was good at hockey and that was all that mattered. So, Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988 were seen as successful, despite the (lack of) medal count.
But, something changed. Younger Canadians were more worldly and less willing to fulfil the role of patsy. When Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Olympics it was pretty clear that another goose egg would not be accepted. Something needed to be done.
So, in 2005, after a year or so of study, the Own The Podium program was unveiled. For those unaware OTP demanded that Canada not only improve its Olympic status, but actually win the medal race. An incredible amount of resources were put into OTP and, shockingly, it worked.
If you use the IOC’s method of calculating medal standings, Canada actually did win the medal race at the 2010 Olympics (Canada had the most golds, although the US had more total medals). Not surprisingly, Canadians had a hell of a lot more fun watching Vancouver than they did Calgary and Montreal. It turns out us Canucks like to win just as much as the rest of the world does.
At this point you might be asking yourself what this has to do with soccer. Or, maybe you’ve already figured the tie in because it’s obvious. When you consider how successful OTP was/is and you also consider the fact that the majority of Canadians continue to support its ideals (even with a global recession, federal deficit and small-c Conservative government OTP continues and has actually been expanded to include summer sports) an argument can be made that there might be a willingness to develop a similar program to finally look at finding solutions to the issues that face the world’s game here in Canada.
That political will might especially exist if, say, we were four years away from hosting a World Cup and staring down the very possibility of embarrassing ourselves at home again.
Simply put, why isn’t the CSA demanding that soccer get its OTP geared towards seeing the Canadian women win the 2015 World Cup.
There may never be a time when the government is more open to spending resources on the sport than there is right now. The soccer community needs to act and act quickly to make sure the opportunity doesn’t pass.