The Ugly Canadian.

In their first game at the Winter Olympics, the Canadian women's hockey team defeated Slovakia 18-0.

Now, I happen to think that there should be a mercy rule in sports like hockey and baseball. The Olympics holds itself up as the embodiment of the spirit of being a good sport. Devastating a competitor that is truly and hopelessly outclassed is almost as embarrassing for the winners as it is for the losers: everybody knows it wasn't a fair fight. It's not unsporting to recognize that.

What is unsporting is to do what Brandon Hicks, a senior writer for CBCSports.ca, did: write a nasty, sneering and snide piece about the Canadian team "eking out a gutsy and harrowing 18-0 victory" despite what he called "the struggling Canadian offence."

I look forward to Mr. Hicks' account of the time his men's league team had a father-son game and creamed those 8-year-olds by a score of 28-3, or of the time when he, then a seventh grader, totally beat up that kid in grade two who looked at him.