anada is pretty lousy at soccer. Men's soccer, that is.
C The world rankings came out a few days ago and Canada is in 79th place. The team above us, in 78th place, is Cape Verde Islands, an island country 570 kilometres off the west coast of Africa. The population is about 500,000.
So to put this in sad perspective, a country with a population smaller than that of 91原创 Island is officially better than us at soccer.
Men's soccer. Which makes the 91原创 women's performance at the Olympics even more wonderful, amazing, mesmerizing, memorable and unbelievable.
The game against the United States was one of the most thrilling and entertaining games of soccer I've ever seen. Not just women's soccer.
Soccer, period. And, since I'm a soccer fanatic and a Saturday-morning couch potato during the Premier League season, it means the women's semi-final was up there with iconic matches.
Canada is ranked seventh in the world. The U.S. is first. American men's soccer doesn't exactly set the world on fire either. Its team is ranked 36th in the world.
Hundreds of thousands of 91原创 tiny tots play soccer on a Saturday morning from Victoria to St. John's, but it took a long time for us to grow into international respectability.
Women's soccer, that is. Sure, Canada's men have reached the World Cup, but it's the women who have inspired us. Galvanized us. And made us immensely proud.
I have a theory why men are terrible at soccer in this country.
Hockey. Hockey consumes and inspires every young boy in this country. I coached all four of my kids - two boys and two girls - at soccer when they were tiny tots, but the boys soon had Stanley Cups in their eyes and ice skates on their feet.
The girls played for teams called the Rainbows and the Chicklets (the girls on the team picked their own names) and most of them didn't think about hockey.
Hockey means every other game or sporting activity in this country is a distant third.
Sure, we do intermittently well in other sports - rowing, triathlons, skiing, figure skating, curling - and we spring surprises in trampoline and horse jumping.
The excuse for Canada doing relatively badly in the summer Olympics, relative to, say, New Zealand, which is ahead of us in the gold medal count (we're about 30th - don't be misled by the bogus medal count that puts us around 12th; the one that really matters puts a greater stock on gold) is that we are a winter nation.
I get that. In the rest of the country, the boys and girls play their soccer in summer. But every sport in Canada suffers from the hockey-is-supreme phenomenon.
Yes, women's hockey is also successful in this country. But let's not fool ourselves: There isn't that much international competition. For Canada to do well in soccer, a game played in just about every nation in the world, is a spectacular achievement.
Burnaby's Christine Sinclair, a world-class player, was a big part of that. Scoring a hat-trick against the U.S. was a triumph. She was the leading goal scorer in an elite competition. She is a national treasure.
The controversy over that free kick and resulting penalty kick also helped get everyone in Canada enraged - and engaged.
The women's World Cup will be held in Canada in three years, and all those young girls - playing for the Chicklets and Rainbows and other teams with cool names - now have all the inspiration they need.
As long as hockey reigns supreme, it will be an eternity before 91原创 men can compete on the world stage.
Canada's women are already there, near the top. Playing an affordable sport, a fraction of the cost of hockey. And no 5: 30 a.m. wake-ups for ice time.
With luck, after this success, a lot more kids will keep their eye on the ball, instead of only the puck.
