True North

Just as well that the Canadians won men's hockey at the end of the Olympics. Hockey's their game, they can have it.

Otherwise, there might have been war -- or at least motorboat raids across Lake Erie, skirmishing along the Manitoba-North Dakota line, or maybe a little cross-border shelling of Bellingham, Wash. Feelings seemed to have been running pretty high in Canada about that game. Nations have fought over less, such as El Salvador and Honduras (1969) or Freedonia and Sylvania (1933).

The Canadians in the U.S. would make a hell of a fifth column, too, with about a million of them in our midst. The subject -- Canadians in the United States, not fifth columnists -- came up while Neil Young was singing at the closing ceremonies. Yuriko said she thought he was a strange choice.

"Well, he is Canadian," I said. That was a surprise. She'd thought he was from California. Maybe he's lived in California for 40 years, I answered, but he's still considered Canadian. Not only that, he's the son of a Canadian sports journalist who wrote a lot about hockey.

Neil Young's voice has held up pretty well, I'd say. But where was famed Canadian William Shatner, he of golden throat? He could have done a number for the closing ceremonies, too.