Jay Baruchel and Sidney Crosby’s feel-good Olympics ad is the quintessential Canadiana we need
Take that, Jon Hamm and Auston Matthews
They say you can tell a lot about a country by its hockey locker room–set, Olympic-themed advertising. Okay, nobody actually says that, but it’s hard not to see two recent commercials as evidence of distinct national identity.
Exhibit A: the American ad for NBC’s Olympic coverage, in which Jon Hamm gives a pep talk to Team USA’s men’s hockey players suggesting that the point of winning is “Canadian tears.” The fact that the ad co-starred Leafs captain Auston Matthews hurt that much more, not to mention that other Canada-trolling Team USA ad starring Tate McCrae.
Related: Jon Hamm and Auston Matthews prove that Team USA is terrified of Team Canada
Exhibit B: a few days later, Canada got its own version of the same locker-room set-up. Instead of Hamm, our commercial stars Jay Baruchel. Instead of Matthews, we get Team Canada captain Sidney Crosby. And instead of unsportsmanlike negativity, our spot is a celebration of uniquely Canadian joy: robust dental care, a lady who puts up too many flags on her lawn, a hockey dad and a couple whose blood type is double-double. Yes, it’s an ad for one of our nation’s notorious telecom conglomerates, but to paraphrase Alexander Graham Bell: Canada rocks. And we don’t need to trash the competition to prove it.
Related: Thank you, Tate McRae, for our new favourite meme
Final ruling: this is, ultimately, a big win for Team Canada and a timely inversion of the whole “Canadians are obsessed with Americans and Americans have never even heard of us” trope. Thankfully for Jon Hamm, Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance seems to have reminded him of the power of positivity. But Team Canada doesn’t need a reminder. It’s just who we are.
Related: Is Canada’s Olympic men’s hockey team really leaving the village for a five-star hotel?
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
