This is OUR game!!!

The Holidays mean a lot of things to a lot of people. It's the Bowl season for US college football fans. It's the beginning of the playoffs in the NFL.

In Canada, there's a tradition that's now a few decades old: The World Junior Hockey Championships. It's a chance to see the crème de la crème of tomorrow's NHL. The best young talent on the planet all in one place, as countries duke it out for bragging rights.

And this year the tournament was held in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Canadians are a fractious lot, and there is no such thing as a Canadian identity. Indeed, a majority of Canadians are simply proud not to be American. Hence, there's no unity in any shape or form. God knows my countrymen give me opportunities to be ashamed of being Canadians on an almost weekly basis. . . Especially my French Canadian brothers and sisters, now that the go-gauche québécoise is out in full force, but that's another story. . .

There's only one thing that can truly bring this country together, coast to coast, and that's hockey. This year our boys were gunning for a fifth straight gold medal. And to get there, they had to beat the USA, Russia, and Sweden, all of them hockey powerhouses in their own rights.

They had to come back from behind and show a lot of character to beat the Americans. They scored with barely a few seconds left in the third period to tie the game with the Russians, and then defeated them in a shootout when overtime solved nothing. And tonight, they beat the Swedes 5-1 to capture the gold medal.

Well-done, guys! Once again, you have made us proud to be Canadians!

Someone in the crowd had a banner that said it all about this country: Hockey. . . Nothing else matters!