Juno who that is?

As I write I've just finished watching the Juno Awards - for those of you outside Canada, the Junos are the Canadian equivalent of the Grammies or the Brit Awards - and I've come to a conclusion. Either: a) I'm getting old, b) my finger is not on the pulse of Canadian music culture or c) Canadian music culture has no pulse. I say this because I've spent most of the last couple of hours repeating the same word: who?

In reality the situation is most probably a combination of (a) and (b), and this is most certainly the case if anyone from Immigration Canada is reading. I guess gradually losing touch with youth culture is all a natural part of the ageing process and is consequently nothing to really worry about, and to be honest I'm more than happy with my generational orientation in terms of music, given what I saw and heard on stage tonight.

I think that the process of being out of touch works in both directions though. Young whippersnapper Alexandre Bilodeau, who won Canada's first gold medal at the recent Winter Olympics, presented the final award of the evening, and whilst the eventual winner was not that old, the generation gap was evident when Bilodeau opened the envelope and proclaimed, "and the winner is...Michael Bubble."

To his credit, Michael Bublé graciously collected his award without so much as a flicker of indignation although maybe, given his role in the closing ceremony of Bilodeau's Olympics, that was only right and proper...

Going for gold

So, the Olympic Winter Games are now well and truly under way, and Canada has its first gold in the shape of Alexandre Bilodeau in the moguls, the skiing event that requires compulsory knee replacement surgery every alternate year. Bilodeau is the first Canadian ever to win a gold medal on home soil (or snow, or ice for that matter), but for most Canucks the real action gets going tonight when the Canadian men's hockey team takes the ice for the first time. Canada's women have already got their hockey campaign off to a good start, but the men are the real focus of attention, and the public's obsession with, and expectations of, the team is every bit as intense as it gets in England when the soccer team are playing in the World Cup, with one major difference.

The Canadian hockey team actually have a chance of winning!