We all like to give Canada the business down here in the United States of Self-Absorption. I mean, we once made an entire movie ("Canadian Bacon") that was a goof on our neighbors to the north -- and, really, who can forget the McKenzie Brothers and their back bacon?
(That's not to say Canadians can't give as good as they get, of course. I still remember the time I made an offhand comment about an Alberta Clipper weather system, and one of the Komets laughed at me and said, "You Americans, you always blame us for your weather." The bemusement that went with the comment I'd come to see as standard-issue with Canadian hockey players in Fort Wayne; most of them loved the States but thought we were, you know, kind of weird sometimes).
(On the other hand, they gave the world Justin Bieber. So call it a draw in the weirdness department).
At any rate, the jokes and the digs have, historically, almost always been in the vein of big-brother-tormenting-little-but-physically-bigger-brother. That's because, like brothers, we have each other's backs when it gets down to cases, because physical geography and common geopolitics demand as much.
And so it was with no little surprise, but a great deal of class, that the Pittsburgh Penguins decided to open their home game last night with not only the Star-Spangled Banner, but also O Canada. It was their way of acknowledging the 27 Canadians on both the Penguins and Flyers hockey teams at the end of a scary day up north in which gunmen killed a Canadian soldier and gunfire erupted inside Parliament in Ottawa.
You can watch the video here. And if your throat doesn't get a little narrow, you've got no soul.
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