Thumbs up, thumbs down: Olympic edition
Conrad Au, Associate Staff Writer

The Vancouver Canucks are playing extremely well, currently on a seven-game unbeaten streak with 6 wins and a tie. So instead of repeating what many sports journalists have already said about the Canucks' play in the past month, let's move on to this week's edition of Thumbs.

Thumbs Up
Catriona LeMay Doan: You could not have made an argument against Catriona LeMay Doan when selecting the flagbearer for Canada at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Whether it is her achievements in speed skating (she owns most of the world records in events she competes in) or her inspiration as a role model off the ice track (her "Power To Change" commercial spots can be seen on TSN nationwide), LeMay Doan resembles all the qualities in which all Canadians would want representing their country. This is not to say that the other candidates considered for this honour did not have their own merits. In fact, arguments could have been made for all of them. For example, figure skater Elvis Stojko, whose determination to recover from injuries that had everyone doubting his abilities to compete again has inspired this country, could have easily been named the flagbearer as this will be Stojko's last Olympics. World pairs figure skating champions Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who rocked Vancouver with their goal medal performance at the World Championships here last year, and Olympic bronze medal downhill skier Ed Podivinsky could have also been named to this honour and would have been deserving of it as well. However, the Saskatoon-born LeMay Doan, now 31, has continually been one of Canada's elite amateur athletes internationally for the past decade, breaking her own world records time after time. If you are not a sports fan and do not care for the Olympics, make sure you at least watch the opening ceremonies (Feb 8, 5pm, CBC). When LeMay Doan leads the Canadian athletes into the Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium, you will see the perfect resemblance of what being a Canadian is all about. Go Canada Go!

Thumbs Down
Canadian Olympic Hockey Goaltenders: It wasn't supposed to be this way. Instead of battling for the right to be named the number 1 goalie for Team Canada at Olympic, Curtis Joseph, Martin Brodeur, and Ed Belfour have all played average at best. In fact, this seems to be more of a battle of which out of the three is the worst of all, and even that's hard to decide. Wayne Gretzky and company will have their hands full this week trying to decide who the top 2 goalies for Team Canada will be, and it's going to be difficult for all the wrong reasons. Conventional wisdom will suggest Joseph will get the nod for Team Canada simply because Brodeur and Belfour, whose respective NHL teams recently fired their head coach, do not have anything going for them. It might even be fair to suggest that Gretzky and Team Canada are regretting not choosing Phoenix Coyotes' Sean Burke instead of Ed Belfour like everyone in the media had predicted. Burke happens to currently own the third highest save percentage in the NHL among Canadian goalies, behind Colorado's Patrick Roy (who declined the Olympic invitation) and Montreal's José Theodore. Thankfully the rest of the Team Canada roster is doing reasonably well, as the Associated Press recently predicted Team Canada to end its 50-year drought at the Olympics by winning the gold medal in Salt Lake.

Conrad can be reached via e-mail at conrad_au(at)sfu.ca or via his website at conradau.tripod.ca

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