It’s been a couple of weeks now since the Winter Olympics in Vancouver concluded, but I thought I’d offer a few quick thoughts on the whole thing from the point of view of a Canadian.

I think most people see Canadians as very polite and passive folks, which for the most part we are. However, we can also be very cynical amongst ourselves and occasionally quite passionate when we want to be. We’ve always had a bit of an inferiority complex with regards to our neighbours down south, and we tend not to get our hopes up about competitions because we’re used to being disappointed.

This year, however, we set a very gutsy goal of “owning the podium” (ie. winning the most medals), something that we have never come close to doing before. When the Olympics got off to a rough start with a tragic death on the luge track, an opening ceremony malfunction, and terrible weather conditions (not to mention a qualifying round loss to the U.S. in Men’s Ice Hockey), everyone was kind of scoffing and saying it was just typically Canadian.

But then something happened, and slowly the tide turned. Even people who normally wouldn’t watch sports found themselves glued to the TV. The medals started to come, and there was a tremendous feeling of celebration and unity all across the country. Whether it was celebrities sampling poutine, the women’s hockey team boozing it up on the ice, or the sold out crowds spontaneously bursting into the national anthem at any given event, we started to show the world what Canada is really made of.

I don’t think it was really about winning so much as it was proving that we can compete — and also that we can throw a decent party. Even though we’ve never been much for blind patriotism, there was a genuine feeling of pride that most of us shared (well, at least until Nickelback took the stage at the closing ceremonies). Even if all the visiting countries go back to forgetting about us in the coming weeks, I still feel like this was an important moment for Canada. All of the people who are so separated across this massive country of ours came together to appreciate some of the things that we all have in common, and came a little bit closer to carving out our own identity. We surprised ourselves, and I feel like, maybe, just maybe, we took the rest of the world by surprise too.