WEST SHORE STUDENT VOICE: Olympic fever unites Canada from coast to coast
Published 8:30 am Monday, February 9, 2026
People, the Olympics are back! I’m thrilled, of course. I’m not much of a sports fan, except for those precious few weeks every two years when the CBC plays Olympic coverage non-stop, and I become an expert in all things athletic. (Only on a theoretical level, of course.)
Yes, for these few weeks, Canada becomes a nation united under one banner: Team Canada.
These Games, we are cheering even louder for our snowboarders, our curlers, and yes, especially our lugers.
National unity does seem to be the theme du jour, what with all the threats from the administration down south. National pride, already higher when we cheer for our Olympians, is strong.
This is perhaps a new experience for people of my generation, many of whom seem apathetic when it comes to the idea of national pride. Until Donald Trump’s re-election, Canadian identity was not something many young people really thought about. It simply wasn’t on our radar.
Now that it’s threatened, we are examining who we are as young Canadians more closely than we have in a long time.
What is it that differentiates us from the rest of the world? Is it our love of maple syrup? Is it our hatred for the Canada goose, yet inexplicable love for the loon? Perhaps it’s our glorious association with poutine.
Maybe it’s our national ethos of kindness, politeness, and friendliness. Or our well-earned global reputation as a country of peace and peacemakers.
Could it be the fact that we are not an empire, like the folks down south, but rather, a “middle power” as Prime Minister Carney so eloquently put it?
We don’t have the strongest military in the world, but we build bridges and form alliances. We have friends. This is a stark contrast to the Americans, who seem to be dousing gasoline on every bridge they can.
The truth is, Canadian identity is all of that and much more.
It’s listening to the CBC in the morning as the coffee brews and the sleep is blinked from your eyes.
It’s enjoying Come From Away on a deeper level than other audiences.
It’s the crushing grief that paralyzes the country when we lose a legend like Catherine O’Hara.
Canadian identity is vast, versatile, and now, it’s up to us to determine what it becomes after the current storm. In the future, when we cheer for Team Canada, what will we be cheering for?
Canada is, above anything else, a nation of many. A core part of the Canadian identity is the fact that it’s built by all of us, every single day. It’s not a singularity but a collective.
Canada’s not perfect, but nothing is. If one thing is clear, it’s that the world needs more of that Canadian kindness, peacefulness, and friendliness.
In a time when brute force, rampant cruelty, and “might makes right” are glorified by the American empire, it’s these Canadian ideals that are the key to resisting American aggression and the old world they’re trying to force us back to.
When we cheer for Team Canada, let’s cheer for the proud, kind, peaceful, and friendly country we know it can be.
Let’s cheer for Canada, both for what it is and what we can continue to make it.
Let’s cheer for the altruism, peace, and simple kindness that the world desperately needs.
Go Team Canada!
Gabriel Mackintosh is a student at Royal Bay Secondary School.