Even if you don't care that much about tennis, by now you almost certainly know who Milos Raonic is.
His story has been all over the sports pages for weeks: Canadian kid, 20 years old, comes out of nowhere to make the round of 16 at the Australian Open, then wins his first tournament in San Jose and, over the weekend, lost in the final in Memphis in an epic slugfest against American star Andy Roddick.
Minor correction: He didn't come out of "nowhere". He'd been training and playing for years. But it's the first time the average Canadian sports fan had heard of him. Why? Simple: He started winning.
There's a very important lesson to be learned here as it relates to Canadian soccer.
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Hardcore fans of the Canadian national program often lament the fact that folks like Christine Sinclair, Atiba Hutchinson and Josh Simpson aren't household names in this country. Sometimes, it's chalked up to widespread anti-soccer sentiment, or some sort of "old boys" conspiracy within the mainstream media, a concerted effort to suppress coverage of the beautiful game.
But sports fans of all stripes have followed the meteoric rise of Raonic with great interest -- even if tennis isn't exactly the most rabidly-followed sport in the country -- simply because he's Canadian, and he's winning on a major stage.
It helps his case that it's easier to "understand" a loss in tennis, by virtue of the more sophisticated stats-keeping. To wit: Roddick won 7-6 (7), 6-7 (11), 7-5, though Raonic had more aces (32-20) and saved several championship points. From that information alone, it's safe to describe the match as an "epic slugfest", as I did. Raonic gets kudos for a hard-fought battle, at the end of the day, even from those who didn't see the match.
But what about the Canadian men's national team's recent 1-0 loss to Greece? Is there any way to quantify the fact that it was an evenly-matched game, that Canada controlled the play for large stretches, and that the only difference was a split-second error by a 20-year-old defender, playing out of position?
Nope. Scoreline says 1-0. Canada lost. Canada always loses at soccer. We suck. Carry on.
It's exceedingly difficult to score "moral" victories in soccer, particularly within a country that has neither the pedigree nor predilection to take a particularly nuanced view of the game.
Regardless of the sport (unless it's hockey), the mindset seems to be, simply, "Did Canada/the Canadian win?" If yes, "Hell yeah, maybe I'll watch next time!" If no, "Ah, whatever. When's Don Cherry come on TV?"
So, what does that mean for Canadian soccer?
It means that if and when the women's team comes close to winning the World Cup, and if/when the men's team comes close to qualifying for the World Cup, people will come out of the woodwork. People who don't even necessarily care about our national soccer teams, or soccer in general. Call it trendiness, call it fickleness, call it whatever you will. But that's the way it's going to be.
In the meantime, those of us who do care (and that includes you, considering that you're reading this) just need to hold down the fort, educate those around us to the best of our abilities, and dream about how gratifying those ultimate accomplishments will feel.
After all, Raonic's tournament win surely felt 1,000 times better to those who've been supporting him for years than it did to those who hadn't heard of him two months ago.
Photo credit: Mark Humphrey/Associated Press
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