Impact short on talent
The opener of the CONCACAF Champions League qualifiers (I am not using the corporate sponsor's name; that company's not paying me) showed that effort can't trump talent.
There was no doubt that the Montreal Impact, perennially one of the elite franchises in the lower-tier United Soccer Leagues, ran more, offered more tackles and dominated the territorial battle in the game with the big boys from the MLS, Toronto FC.
But, even with players missing due to international duty, TFC's talent was enough to overcome Montreal's hard work. The Impact could easily have been up 2-0 in the first 20 minutes, but point-blank shots by Rocco Placentino and David Testo both missed the TFC goal by wide margins. Placentino, a Montrealer, had played with some lower-division Italian clubs, but, with a total of three career goals in his USL career, showed that the challenge of playing an MLS club may be beyond him. Testo, meanwhile, has 60 goals in a long USL career; but the former University of North Carolina star has never been able to make the jump to the MLS.
Toronto got fewer chances, but looked more dangerous — and actually scored — in the few times it did get close to goal compared to all the times Montreal got into opposition penalty area.
The Saputo family has done a wonderful job with the Impact; they have transformed the team into one that hires the majority of its players from the community. Heck, coach Nick De Santis, who I remember covering back in the mid-'90s during the inaugural season of the Edmonton Drillers of National Professional Soccer League, is a Montrealer. And that's a major reason why the Impact can get more than 12,000 fans out to Stade Saputo and regularly sold out its old Claude Robillard stadium.
But, if Montreal was to realize its MLS dream, it could not field the kind of homegrown team that it tried to use against TFC. Just like TFC learned last season, the Canadian-first attitude, at least at this point, can't work in the MLS. So, players like Placentino or Adam Braz, the Montreal native who played with TFC last season, probably wouldn't make the cut.
The question, would Montreal support a team of imports as fervently as it does its lower-tier team filled with hometown heroes?

I just got back from Key West where I was reminded of the three things that Americans really love:

(1) Calories
(2) Bon Jovi
(3) Sports

It’s the third point I want to talk about. Now don’t get angry at me when I say this … but compared to Americans, we Canadians are not really sports fans.
Yes you may love your one or two teams but I’m betting you don’t know really care what is going on with many of the other teams in that league you like.
You see the difference is that in Calgary they don’t care too much about the Blue Jays inability to hit with men in scoring position or whether or not the Canadiens should try to re-sign both Alex Kovalev and Saku Koivu. But in the United States a basketball fan in Portland has a great deal of interest in which Division I NCAA school had the best recruiting class.

Now I am not saying this is a bad thing. Fanaticism of any kind is never healthy.

We Canadians enjoy our sports but in America sports are king. Consider that their most popular holiday, Thanksgiving, is about two things, Turkey and afternoon NFL football. George Bush’s greatest accomplishment was throwing a perfect strike during the 2001 World Series. You get where I am going with this.

The funny thing is I started writing this piece before I saw the ratings for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Sidney Crosby and the Penguins vs. a star studded Red Wings team; you would think the greatest hockey nation in the world would be tuned in. Right? Wrong. Ratings were down 19% ... 19%! That is not a small blip, that's a huge number. In America it was a ratings bonanza. But since the finals did not have a Canadian team we decided to tune out. The greatest hockey nation in the world has lost interest in what was billed as the greatest Stanley Cup finals match-up in ages? Shouldn’t the ratings have been higher than last year? When it began weren’t we watching the birth of one Dynasty (Pittsburgh) vs. the most dominant team for the past 15 years? But since the finals did not have a team north of the border we just didn’t have the same interest. Are you kidding me? I can't think of a better example for why I don't see Canada as a sports nation.

Now again I am not necessarily saying this is a bad thing and it really isn't just about our national psyche.

We just don’t have anywhere near the monolithic sports media infrastructure that the U.S. has. In Canada you get a very limited amount of TV coverage of University sports and you can forget about high school sports. In America you have profile after profile of high school phenoms, even grade school stars splashed all over the sports section. When was the last time you read about a star WR from the University of Calgary? The athletes are out there, but the money isn’t, so a great number of stories will fall through the cracks. I used to cover University football and I can tell you some of the best football games I ever saw were between McMaster, Western, Queens and Laurier. Before he caught a TD pass vs. Winnipeg in the Grey Cup Andy Fantuz was the second most dominant Canadian collegiate athletes I ever saw (behind Jesse Lumsden).

But most Canadians have no idea where Fantuz came from.

We care about our small pockets of sports but not about Sport. Canadians in the West don't care about the only MLB or NBA teams in Canada, the Blue Jays and the Raptors. While Torontonians don't care about the CFL or Curling.

Sports fans in Seattle know what's going on with the Miami Heat while baseball fans in Dallas you know are bitching about Notre Dame Football. Go to any bar in the States and the majority of patrons identify themselves by their favourite teams. As I mentioned off the top I spent three days in Key West and every bar I went into (you lose count after a while) every conversation between strangers started by where they were from and soon went into the local team and their relative fates. Giants fans were talking about the Super Bowl while Suns fans were lamenting about their cursed luck and how dirty a team the Spurs were.

I'm not sure if this is all such a bad thing. I believe that Americans obsession about sports often blinds them about more socially important issues that should be addressed but get in the way of box scores.

However if you don't buy what I'm selling, I understand. But last me ask you this ... How many of your so called sports fans talk about the Raptors draft needs, who will go down as a better curler Kevin Martin or Glenn Howard and will the B.C. Lions win the Grey Cup over the space of one pint of beer?