Mitchell's U-20 work underwhelming
Sports, July 10
I read with interest Cathal Kelly's critique of Dale Mitchell's coaching of our under-20 soccer team. With all due respect to the parties involved, our performance at this year's tournament should come as no surprise to anyone.
After all:
1. What is the only host country to fail to win an Olympic gold medal at its own Summer Games? (Answer: Canada in 1976).
2. What is the only host country to fail to win an Olympic gold medal at its own Winter Games? (Answer: Canada in 1988, with apologies to Linda Moore's curling rink. Her team won but curling was a demonstration sport at that time.)
Any bets on how we'll do at Whistler in 2010?
The fact is, with the exception of hockey, indoor lacrosse and curling, this country simply doesn't cut it in the world of international sports. The government's pursuit of "participation" rather than "competition" (i.e. trying to win) has to be examined, or else Whistler will be zero-for-three.
As for Toronto hosting the Summer Games years from now – haven't we suffered enough?
James E. Agnew, Whitby, Ont.
The Under-20 World Cup soccer event is supposedly being billed as the biggest event in Canadian history. But after watching the recent U.S. and Brazil game, I'm wondering about the second-rate coverage the CBC seems to be dishing out to Canadian soccer fans.
While this game was being played live in the evening sunshine in Ottawa, here in Toronto, seemingly a world away, we were forced to wait and be fed the game in taped form later that night at 10 p.m.
Here we have one of the greatest teams (Brazil) playing live in Canada and yet we Canadians don't get the opportunity to view a game of this magnitude screened live by our very own publicly funded broadcaster.
Finally, to add insult to injury, when one team scores a goal, the CBC automatically cuts away from the game and throws on three to four minutes of full screen ads for us to watch instead of the game.
So fans lose valuable minutes of play as the CBC's tape continues to run behind the scenes. Does the CBC not have screen-on-screen technology, as other soccer channels do?
This is really a shoddy treatment for soccer fans. Would this happen if it were an NHL or NBA game? Of course not, as these games have now been redesigned to accommodate advertisers. So why does CBC seem to treat soccer fans this way?
It's time the CBC delivered a good experience to Canadian soccer fans.
Alec Caldwell, Ajax, Ont.
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