At the top of the world sports scene, there are the Olympics. For the most part, athletes representing their respective countries, compete against each other. Once in a while the “native status” gets a little blurred; the Swiss for example being high on pride, deep in pockets, and short on population, would attempted to lure in Ronald McDonald, and make him a citizen if the games has a hamburger making event.

The World Cup is a series of soccer matches around the world that pit one nation against the other. In most places; other than the United States, the endurance, strength, and deft skills of the players is only outdone by the rabid, unabashed, ferocious, cult like, loyalty of the fans, which we all know is short for fanatical. Although Soccer Hooligans make for a great comic scene in the movie EuroTrip, the Center For Unbiased Love, or the “CUL” (as it is sometimes called in the “fake name-making up” section of my brain) is unlikely to give any awards to the World Cup fan base anytime soon.

In baseball, there’s the World Series, a game ……ah, er……alright,.lets just cut the crap! How can it be a WORLD series when the whole league is made up of all teams based in one country except for one token Canadian team. I won’t even acknowledge this until at least the Cubans are allowed to play.

Then there’s hockey, the National Hockey League (NHL), and the hockey fans themselves. Recently a popular chant has broken out in America when one of the U.S based teams play one of the Canadian based teams; “USA! USA! USA!” If I am to interpret this correctly, it would be defined as this; “America rules this earth, screw everybody else; were better than you!” That should about cover it. It’s kind of like the guy driving around in the 4×4 pickup with the 20 foot long American flag dragging along in his truck bed (complete with the tattered, frayed cloth, and the oil and grease stains which unbeknown to me, actually symbolizes pride and respect for the flag). There’s only one problem; Math!

Yea, that tricky math; always getting in the way “speaking the truth.”

Lets look closely at the rosters of two teams; the Boston Bruins, and the Montreal Canadians. According to an NHL webpage I looked up, the teams break down like this; The Canadians have 26 players, and the Bruins have 27 players on their present rosters; ah, but the makeup is what cracks me up!

                                 Boston                                       Montreal

Born in Canada            15                                               13

Born in USA                   5                                                6

Others                          7                                                 7

So, the foreign team (Montreal) has more Americans on it than the American team. The American team also has approximately 81% foreign players (sounding more like the Swiss all the time) while the foreign team only has 50% of its roster with “foreign-born” players.

What must be the oddest situation, is for the non-american players themselves, when their own fans seem to be taunting their nationality, not to mention betraying their own loyalty, and dedication to the home team itself. It would almost be like the restaurant patrons standing all together in the dining room chanting; “Waiters suck! Waiters suck!”

Did I mention the word FAN is short for fanatical?