Canadian Ambassador: Ovechkin > Crosby

Interview with Michael Wilson, Canadian ambassador to the U.S. (Sept. 10, 2009):

You’ve had plenty of chances to watch Alex Ovechkin play for the Washington Capitals. Is he better than Sidney Crosby?
Oh, they’re both marvellous players.

But Ovechkin’s more exciting, right? Or is it too undiplomatic to say so?
Ovechkin, because he’s not with as strong a team, has gotta be a very impressive player.

You’ll be leaving Washington early in the Barack Obama era. How do you see his first term shaping up?
President Obama has really hit the ground running and has taken on an extraordinary range of issues, to the extent that there is a sense of overload of the system in Washington. The health care debate, the climate change debate, the financial regulation debate—these are very, very weighty issues. And you have these domestic issues at the same time as you have all the challenges that a superpower has internationally.

What impressions of Americans as a people will you be bringing home?
The population is quite diverse. That wasn’t a surprise, but it was very interesting to see it and to feel it as you went to talk to people in different parts of the country. The Americans, though—they’re very easy to talk to.

More so than Canadians?
I think so, I think so. Their patriotism, their nationalism, their love of politics, their love of sports, their feeling about their religion, their attitudes toward the military, their perception of themselves within the world—some of that is very admirable, some of it’s a little frustrating.

H/t to J.P.

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