A matter of fact

Times are tough, sports funding is drying up and our province will never be a major player at Canada Games, but it doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to be better

The report’s title summed it up.

Medals Matter. Reminds you of Al Davis’s now-famous mantra, “Just win, baby!”

Winning doesn’t matter all the time, of course. Not when you’re a minor hockey player or a Little League player.

But there comes a time in one’s sporting career, when you’ve graduated to the ranks of Canada Games, university sports and beyond, that winning isn’t everything, but, shall we say, emerges to a big part of the end game.

Believing otherwise is nothing short of naïve.

In 2014, a report was forwarded to the provincial government entitled Medals Matter. It was about the Canada Games, and how Newfoundland and Labrador can shake its label of lovable loser to becoming half-way competitive on the national stage.

The 51-page document touched on everything, from funding for amateur sports, to facilities to coaching development.

Its authors had all good intentions, and there was a hope change would ensue. Guess what?

The report was submitted December, 2014, and it’s been collecting dust on a bookshelf ever since.

In fact, government elected to pass on playing host to the 2021 Canada Summer Games, instead flipping with Ontario. Newfoundland and Labrador is now scheduled to stage the 2025 Games, and I’m taking bets we won’t see those Games, either.

Even if it means the province will be missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars (Winnipeg figures to generate some $160 million from these Canada Summer Games which opened last night).

Winnipeg makes it 12 Canada Games on which I’ve reported for The Telegram. Each Games, it seems, I’ve written the same thing over again, that Newfoundland and Labrador needs to start winning some medals.

In actual fact, in the four previous Summer Games prior Winnipeg, the province has seen its medal total decrease, from eight in 2001 (London, Ont.) to seven in 2005 (Regina, Sask.), six in 2009 (P.E.I.) to just two in Sherbrooke, Que. four years ago.

A perfect world would see our Mission Statement read, ‘Newfoundland and Labrador aspires to be a dominant force amongst the four Atlantic provinces, and remain highly competitive with Manitoba and Saskatchewan,’ the fact of the matter is we’re barely better than P.E.I., and its population of some 150,000.

Little has been done to change the culture of losing with Newfoundland. We still hear, ‘We played well, but …’

Our facilities have improved, but they are still very much Third World in comparison to the rest of Canada. There is a greater emphasis on coaching, but the paid professionals, those of whom you need to up everyone’s game, are absent.

Funding is non-existent, completely removed if not for the private sector, not to mention the athletes themselves and their families.

Our athletes, it could be argued, are set up to fail.

To be fair, it’s unreasonable to suggest government should go all-in today on amateur sport, not during the period of time when we’re — and there’s no sugar-coating this — broke.

But what happened in the good times, when we were riding the pig’s back?

You see, the sooner we come to the realization there will be no additional help from government, that sports is on its own, the better off we’ll be.

Facilities? We’ll have to make do. Funding? We can always Chase the Ace. Coaching? Get Pat Parfrey to draw up a ‘How to…’ manual.

But all is not lost. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

It was proven in March, at the Brier, and back in 2006, at the Torino Winter Olympics, that with a lot of work, and even more determination, much can be accomplished.

Brad Gushue willed himself to be a champion curler. Other athletes should take note.

Newfoundland and Labrador chef de mission Rod Snow, who knows a thing or two about what it takes to succeed, says the expectations of Canada Games are “definitely” cited to the coaching staffs.

This isn’t — my words, not his — Romper Room.

Today’s athletes are expected to be top physical condition, with the thinking that a) no support, governmental or otherwise, is needed to get in shape and b) a highly-conditioned athlete has the edge on his/her opponent from the get-go.

“We’re getting more buy-in on that,” said Snow. “Is it 100 per cent? No, not yet.”

The plain truth of the matter is Newfoundland and Labrador will never be a major player on the national sporting stage. We don’t have enough people, and it costs double what it would to training an athlete anywhere else.

So maybe is it’s unfair to expect ours to be the best in Atlantic Canada and compete with others in central Canada.

But if we don’t map out some kind of blueprint, it will be all for not.

Like, sadly, Medals Matter.