I’ve never been to Canada before, but if NBC has taught me anything, it consists only of picturesque snow-capped mountains, stunning waterfalls and those bears from the Coca-Cola commercials. Also thanks to NBC, I now know that Canada and America have peacefully shared a long border for a long time. And, contrary to popular belief, Canada has produced famous people.

So I guess Canada isn’t completely worthless, but with all due respect, Canada, your Olympics blow.

This is your third time hosting the Olympics, so you think you would have figured out how to throw a good one. Not even close.

How long have you been planning the opening ceremonies? 12 months? 24 months? All that time you spent, all that money you invested, all that grandeur you had envisioned — all ruined by a technical difficulty. You cannot mess up the opening ceremonies. You just can’t.

And if you’re going to ruin some part of the ceremony, choose any part besides the actual lighting of the torch. Forgetting to announce the Latvian delegation or having k.d. lang’s mic go out during her rendition of “Hallelujah” would be one thing. But leaving Wayne Gretzky — your hero, your savior, your God — stranded on stage for nearly five minutes waiting for the fourth cauldron to rise out of the floor of BC Place (which never came) is simply unacceptable.

It’s slightly karmic that the ceremonies ended in a complete flop, considering how much you over-hyped them. You tried claiming that three billion people watched the opening ceremonies. What the hell is in the Canadian tap water? Three billion? There are about seven billion people in the world and you’re saying more than 40 percent of them watched the ceremonies. Hell, more than 20 percent of the world’s population doesn’t even have electricity.

Outside of the BC Place, your weather could not be worse. Rain and fog is not good for snow sports. Did you not learn anything from the Beijing Olympics? You can control the weather. Amidst fears that the city was too smoggy for athletes to compete in, Beijing officials used cloud-seeding cannons to cause a rainstorm a few days prior to the start of the games to wash the air pollution away and prevent it from raining during the games.

You? You just sat idly by and watched as Mother Nature continues to wreak havoc with your games.

Even the indoor athletes are under pressure. Figure skaters are being threatened for wearing fur. The fact that this is one of the biggest headlines coming out of the games thus far is depressing. I don’t care about figure skating. I don’t care about fur. And I certainly don’t care about figure skaters wearing fur. Yet whenever I tune into NBC or its affiliates, I still hear U.S. skater Johnny Weir talking about nut-job anti-fur activists. Is there really nothing else to talk about?

And to top it off, an Olympian died during a practice run. A few rain drops here and there and discussions about fur are not going to kill anyone, but actually killing someone? That’s the ultimate no-no.

What are the Olympics supposed to be a celebration of, again?
Mike Lazarus is totally blaming Canada. Calm him down by sending Anne Murray songs to mlazarus “at” stanford.edu.⌠