It was some pretty big news which managed to slip past a lot of the mainstream media and I’m not sure how that happened.
Our national junior football team posted a 23-17 win over the United States in the gold medal game of a tournament deep in the heart of football-mad Texas. You would think our media would have been all over that like ants at a picnic.
To give this some perspective it would be like the coyote catching the roadrunner. Charlie Brown actually kicking the ball. Charlie Sheen staying clean for a month. This is a great victory but we really didn’t get a chance to celebrate it because we really didn’t get to hear about it.
Now why is that?
I don’t have the answer, other than to speculate it was once again our Canadian humility taking over and us saying ‘aw shucks, that weren’t nothing.’
Sure this team was ranked second overall but that’s like saying the same thing about all the golfers who were ranked second behind Tiger when he was the most dominant player on the world stage. You know you have the skills but most figure they have a snowballs chance in a very warm spot down south of actually beating number one.
But there are always exceptions to the rule and this group of football players went into this event knowing they could compete and beat the best in the world.
What these young men did was exceptional and they didn’t just squeak past the Americans, they jumped out to a 10-0 lead and then went toe-to-toe with the Yankees to preserve the win.
The other side of this newly minted coin is the way these players covered the expense to get to the tournament in the first place.
There was plenty of fundraising, including selling cupcakes. Come on – football players having a bake sale to represent the country. Not that I have turned my nose up at a cupcake in my life but I would suggest there is a problem with funding our young athletes.
That is another issue but helmets off to the young warriors who went into this event believing they could win and backing up their bravado on an international stage.
sports@reddeerexpress.com
