The line outside the Roots store on Main Street stretches a half-block north and around the corner. Russian figure skater Alexei Yagudin pops up wearing a Canadian team jacket. A top writer for an American publication is seen walking through Olympic Square in a red jacket with the now-familiar script lettering.
Barenaked Ladies, a Canadian rock group, is a smash hit at the medals ceremonies.
Even Americans were tearing up when figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier finally got their gold.
Face it, it's cool being Canadian. It's also hip, chic, sophisticated, with-it, groovy, rad and, most of all, fashionable. Who says Canada is dull? Canada House is so popular that new rules have been instituted to control the crowd size.
Best way to know if you're in touch with these Winter Games: show up with a Canadian beret, or at least the familiar red-and-white striped scarf. Practice saying "oot" instead of "out" and "a-boot" instead of about.
Pretty amazing, eh?
We love their figure skaters for handling that controversy so nicely. We love their speedskating star, Catriona Le May Doan, for her speed, power and athletic looks. Secretly, we'd love to see their hockey team win the gold medal, after 50 years of agony.
Shouldn't the country that produces the world's best players get to win the gold medal?
Trouble with becoming an adopted Canadian is that it has already been discovered. When the Roots store ? a Canadian clothing manufacturer ? on Main opens in the morning, a hundred or more people are in line. The doors swing open and a clerk says, "Sorry (sore-y in Canadian), that's all we can let in with this group." A few minutes later he allows a handful of others to crowd inside. Though this Roots store stocks Canadian-only clothing, a manager estimates 80 percent of the "thousands" of daily visitors are Americans.
The rush to buy Canadian clothing started when that country was originally denied a gold medal in figure skating pairs.
"That first day after the skating thing," said Roots store manager Kristi Lee, "Americans were coming in saying they thought the Canadians were robbed and they wanted to buy our product to support them."
Now Canada-lovers pass through the store in a snaking line, grabbing anything on the shelves. It may not fit, but nobody cares. They can sell it on e-Bay for double their cost. The most popular item: the distinctive red berets the team wore in the opening ceremonies. Roots is hoping to have a new shipment today.
This is strange territory for a country used to being ignored. For most of its existence, Canada has had to put up with being America's kid brother. The nice guy to the north. Head east and hang a left at Duluth. Great place to live, if you're a moose.
Now, well, who doesn't want to live there?
Although Canada has been building popularity since Nagano, its profile exploded this week. Two things combined to make Canada the nation du jour of these Olympics. First were the opening ceremonies, in which Canada came across looking fresh, classy and fashionable. The closest competition came from the U.S. and Britain, both of which enlisted Roots to design their uniforms, too.
Second was the figure skating controversy. Once it became clear the Canadians had performed well enough to win the gold, forget it. The media and public descended like an avalanche.
Jamie Sale and David Pelletier became the story of the Games.
But weren't these supposed to be America's Games? Canada stole our thunder.
America has had success on the medals podium. But it has also shared much of the attention with Canada.
Still, nobody's complaining.
What's wrong with being neighborly?