The thrilling Olympic gold medal hockey game on Sunday was a welcome bit of entertainment here in the early stages of the interminable NFL off-season. Canada beat the USA, 3-2, in a back-and-forth overtime epic.

 

It was certainly better television than the NFL Combine, which has two problems. One, it falls somewhere below an IRS audit for entertainment value; and two, it trails pin the tail on the donkey for its ability to identify guys who can actually play pro football.

 

Seriously, how many times can you watch Mike Mayock break down the shuttle run in one afternoon, and when was the last time you saw a guy actually attempt a shuttle run during the course of a football game?

 

Zero and never seem about right.

 

Which brings us back to the Olympics. Some people saw sport and spectacle in the 2010 Vancouver games.

 

But you know that the Cold, Hard Football Facts typically zig when the others zag. And what we saw was not just sport and spectacle, but a referendum on the political debate raging now across the United States – the debate that pits big-government statists vs. small-government traditionalists.

 

One side believes more government and more taxpayer money is the solution to all the nation’s ills. The other side believes that less government, fewer tax dollars and more private initiative is the best way to tackle any issue.

 

The 2010 Winter Olympics – indeed, the entire history of the Olympic games – falls squarely in the camp of the traditionalists: less government and more private initiative is the winning formula.

 

We know that the U.S. lost the showcase hockey game Sunday. But the Americans did win the overall medal count, with 37. Germany was second with 30 medals. Host Canada finished third, with 26 medals.

 

America's 37 medals were the most captured by one nation in the history of the winter games. But it’s hardly the first time the United States enjoyed great Olympic success. In fact, the U.S. is, without question, the world’s dominant Olympic power, and by a wide margin. (The U.S. often struggles in the winter games, but is traditionally dominant in the summer games.)

 

Here’s the all-time medal count top 12, since the very first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 (the source list is from Wikipedia):

 

So the United States has obviously dominated the global athletic competition. It’s a dominance made all the more remarkable for two reasons

 

One, with the exception of basketball, no Olympic sports counts among the most popular sports in the United States. Hockey is a possible No. 4 in American popularity – but kids in many corners of the nation have never seen an icy pond or even picked up a hockey stick, let alone competed in the sport at any level. In other words, Olympic competition is largely an afterthought for America's greatest athletes.

 

Two, and more importantly for our purposes, America’s dominance provides an interesting case study in the nation’s current political divide: After all, it’s a stunning defeat for the big-government statists and a big victory for the small-government traditionalists.

 

Here’s why: almost every nation on earth, including every Olympic power on the list above, invests significant national treasure – tax dollars, public money – into its Olympic teams.

 

Every Olympic power but one: the United States.

 

The world’s greatest Olympic power does not spend a single federal dollar on its national teams. The dominance of the United States on the global athletic stage is done the traditional American way: it’s funded entirely with private dollars. You know, by those greedy individuals and Big Evil Corporations who spend their own money the way they see fit. They spend it on charity, art, new business ventures, inventions and organic economic growth.

 

And among these other things, greedy individuals and Big Evil Corporations use their pesky wealth and profits to fund the world’s most successful Olympic team.

 

The Soviet Union/Russia is No. 2 on the all-time medals list. The Soviet’s Olympic teams were entirely state subsidized, though that’s changed in the post Soviet era.

 

The German government spent $249 million to fund its Vancouver Olympic team alone, according to a Bloomberg report. That’s $8.3 million for each of its 30 medals. Seems there might be better use of tax dollars than buying Olympic medals.

 

Great Britain is mired in a miserable period of physical and cultural dependency on its bloated government. The nation spent 440 million pounds on the 2008 Olympic team it sent to Beijing (about $660 million). That effort yielded 46 medals – or about $14 million in taxpayer money per medal. The Vancouver games were not so kind: the Brits captured a single gold medal (and now face the possibility of a cut in government funding). 

 

That's a poor showing for a nation that’s traditionally an Olympic power (fourth on the all-time medal count) – but a nation whose global and athletic prominence seems to decline with every step it’s taken toward statism.

 

The big-government British press has responded to the nation’s declining fortunes in typical fashion. It demanded more government intervention: “The direct link between funding and performance is now so undeniable it barely warrants discussion,” was the laughable assertion in the Daily Telegraph after the 2008 Summer Games.

 

Even the rock-solid capitalistic Aussies seem convinced that Olympic medals are purchased with taxpayer treasure. Before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Australian Olympic officials responded to a slide in its standings in the fashion typical of those dependent upon government: it tried to lay a guilt trip on the Australian public and begged the feds for more money. Here’s one sad report from Reuters, quoting an Australian Olympic official:

 

 

And Canada, the host country of this year’s Winter Olympics, has budgeted $47 million per year for its Olympians (the current conversion rate on U.S. to Canadian dollars is about 1 to 1). Canadian Olympic officials responded to the nation's success in Vancouver in a fashion typical of those who must suckle from the nipple of the bloated goverment pig: they immediately hit the PR circuit to beg for more money, hoping to capture the wave of public joy in wake of Sunday's hockey win over the U.S.

 

Canada also spent $66 million in taxpayer dollars for its widely publicized “Own the Podium” program – its effort for the home nation to win more medals than any other country (private enterprise provided another $51 million in funding).

 

The effort failed.

 

Sure, Canada won 14 gold medals, the most of any nation. And Team Canada squeaked out that thrilling overtime win against the United States with the all-star collection of athletes from its national game. But they failed to Own the Podium on their home turf.

That honor, instead, went to the United States – the nation that relies on private citizens and corporations, and not  taxpayer dollars, to dominate global athletic competition.