AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Host an Olympic party, not a Super Bowl party

OK sports fans, huddle in. In a world where there seems there are precious few things Canadians and Manitobans can do to fight Trump’s relentless attack on our home and native land, this weekend gives all of us an opportunity to fight back.

It’s one of those rare times where the power rests with us and is completely under our control, not someone else’s, so let’s take advantage. Let’s embarrass the U.S.

Here’s the plan: Avoid at all costs hosting or attending a Super Bowl party. When the TV ratings come out after the big game – one that often lives up to its nickname “Super Bore” – wouldn’t it be glorious if the ratings showed no one, not a single TV set in all of Canada, tuned into the NFL’s championship game?

Few things are as purely American as their big football game. It’s an ugly display of unmatched glitz, U.S. nationalism, jingoism and excessive corporate greed. And now, under the umbrella of Trump’s disastrous presidency, viewed through the lens of the antagonism he constantly shows us, every good and patriotic Canadian must boycott having anything to do with the Super Bowl.

The exception to this Canadian embargo of all things American will be the Albertans and others in western Canada who are actively talking about separating from Canada. Enjoy the game and then please make plans to move to America if you love it so much. If living under the leadership of a felon who was close friends with alleged sexual trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is something you want to do, please don’t let the door hit you on the way out of our beautiful country.

For real Canadians, let’s show our patriotism, our collective national resolve and our wholesale revulsion of their criminally convicted leader by not watching a single hot second of their Americana brag-fest.

Let’s celebrate Canadiana instead.

If you were planning to host a football party, host an Olympic party instead. Yes the action from Italy starts early, but that’s why PVRs were invented. Record some Olympic action from the early morning and watch that instead. Revel in not partaking in anything American. Relish celebrating Canadian and international athletes. Have fun with it. Invite your friends to wear red and white or anything with a maple leaf. As you prepare to host your friends, extend your joyful boycott of American products by making sure all your munchies and beverages are Canadian-made.

Have even more fun with it by filming your Canadiana party and posting clips on social media. This will do two things at once. It will make fellow Canadians swell with pride and embarrass Americans.

If you’ve been invited to a football party, get together with some friends (as there truly is strength in numbers) and politely ask your hosts to change the focus of the party from four down football to anything else. If the hosts insist on it being a football party, politely say you will not attend. As someone who loves Canada, you can no longer abide anything that celebrates a country that is actively hurting us.

The president is hyper-focused on TV ratings. When he’s repulsively belittling reporters by insulting their intelligence or their looks, he constantly references their bad ratings.

So let’s hurt him where his obsession hits home, let the ratings show that no one in Canada watched the game. Then watch with Canadian pride at the next press conference when a brave reporter asks “Mr. President, can you comment on the fact that the entire country of Canada boycotted the Super Bowl?”

He insults Canada. He is causing great economic harm with his tariffs. He constantly threatens us. He has repeatedly said he wants to make us the 51st state.

Boycotting the game on Sunday and making a bold statement about loving Canada should be the patriotic duty of every sports fan that loves our country.

Buy Canada. Bye America.