At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the guy setting up the ice for the hockey finals was a Canadian. As most Canadians know by now, he planted a Canadian loonie directly under centre ice, and Canada won two hockey gold medals. Of course we all know that there is no causal relationship between these events (the loonie didn’t cause or even help the hockey teams to win), but it makes for a pretty cool story. Since then, the whole “lucky loonie” thing has been used at the 2003 IIHF World Championships, the 2006 Winter Olympics (though not for hockey, only for curling), and even the 2006 Stanley Cup finals between Edmonton and Carolina.

While watching the women’s snowboard cross last week, I heard the announcers mention that the course builders had planted a Canadian loonie under the course somewhere, hoping to give the Canadians a bit of an advantage.

Note to those Canadians involved with setting up events at the Olympics, whether at Vancouver or other future games: It’s been done. Let’s just drop it now, OK?