Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
That, right there, is exactly why this thread has started up, as someone has pointed out earlier.
There is plenty of economic benefit to having gold-medal producing athletes.
All I have to do is look at the our gold medal ambitions in ice hockey (Olympics or World Juniors, both managed by federally-funded Hockey Canada), and realize the latent benefits we get from having world-class athletes don the Canadian jersey. If we were national or perennial on-ice losers, the game wouldn't be as strong as it is today, and wouldn't be the economic institution that multitudes of industries derive benefit from.
Not to mention high-performing athletes and athletic systems can have trickle-down benefits for the general health and interest in sports in today's out-of-shape Canadian population.
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Canada was pretty shabby in international hockey for a long time.
And while the Olympic and world juniors are funded by hockey Canada, they are only in the sense that they pay the freight when a tournament comes up, but they don't fund the training of any of their athletes*. The hockey players got their funding the old fashioned way -- their dad paid for it.
*except in those rare development camps, but the reality is the players pay for their own training by playing junior or professional hockey for a private enterprise