Forget about General Hospital and As the World Turns, hockey now has its own soap opera, “MVP”. Only Canada, the country that brought us a sitcom devoid of any socially redeeming values like “Trailer Park Boys”, could bring North America a rip off of the BBC series “Footballers Wives”. No major network in the US would be bothered with such a program about hockey. After all, the NHL can only get a mickey mouse network like Versus to televise the lion-share of its regular season games. Leave it to SoapNet to pick up a series that the CBC dropped for being too racy for Canadian sensibilities. This ain’t no “Anne of Green Gables”. God forbid anyone shed a bad light on the NHL in Canada.

This program is so bad, it’s laughable. All the characters are caricatures of fictional people who populate the NHL. There’s the wife of the superstar team Captain who is widowed when he suffers a fatal heart attack after inhaling too much nose candy. They have nubile “ballerina” daughter to whom Daddy left the ranch and his wife nothing. There’s the gray haired ruthless General Manager and his smarmy, hatchetman assistant. The boozehound coach, the Dudley DoRight team captain, the Rookie in over his head with the substances and the babes, the well meaning female team doctor conflicted by the “treatments” the coach and owners demand she dole out. And last, but not least, the misunderstood but psychotic French Canadian enforcer. He’s a male whore who’ll sleep with any disease riddlled puck bunny that comes along. He “overmedicates” and hallucinates seeing his dead wife and child whose mysterious deaths were somehow his fault. Need I go on?

I have heard some people say they are going to boycott watching these Olympics because they are being held in China. There are many reasons why people are turning their backs on these Olympics. Some are angry about China’s record of human rights violations, particularly their policy on Tibet. Others dislike China because they are one of the world’s biggest polluters. Others see China as a throwback Communist superpower and a nuclear threat. These are all valid reasons to dislike and mistrust China.

I recall that the policy of the Carter Administration was to have US Athletes boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan, who ironically at that time was a US ally. The Soviet Union’s tit for tat measure was to boycott the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The only purpose these boycotts served was to deprive the athletes of their hard earned opportunity to compete against the best in pursuit of their personal bests and Olympic dreams.

The athletes participating in these games and their families have worked and sacrificed to get to these Olympic Games. This world event only happens once every four years. This might be their only shot. If the world is to learn anything from the tragedy in Munich and the boycotts in the 1980’s, it is not to make the Olympics political. This event is on a world stage to showcase and honor the athletes and their sports, not to forward political agendas. It’s not about the flags, it’s about the people.

Good Luck to all the Competitors