Canadians have no sense of humor about brown slopes

WHISTLER -- Just trying to be neighborly.

"Wheredya want this?" I asked the closest paramilitary commando security cop at the bottom of the road to Cypress Mountain.

He looked through the side window of the Tundra and sneered.

"I brought y'all a load of snow," I deadpanned, pointing toward the covered truck bed. "Fresh from Mount Baker. They've got a lot of it -- 114 inches at the base, 138 inches up on Pan Dome."

Nothing. No courtesy laugh. No courtesy scoff. No courtesy anything.

Canadians have a good sense of humor about most things -- I mean, c'mon, nobody can walk around in those Mountie pants and even begin to take themselves too seriously.

But they don't think the abject lack of snow at Cypress "Mountain" is very funny. In fact, they don't like to talk about it at all.

Just trust them, they say. All will be fine. Well, we'd like to. But we know better.

We didn't really attempt to dump a load of frosty stuff at Cypress today, and it's a good thing, because we would've been stopped in our (dry, barren) tracks.

Monday was to be the first day of training for freestyle skiers. Apparently, it was. But it's impossible to verify, because reporters were not allowed anywhere near the mountain, according more than one of them, who tried.

Whoever said there's no such thing as bad publicity clearly does not work in the Severe-Lack-of-Snow Public-Relations Damage-Mitigation Department for the Vancouver Organizing Committee. And Cypress managers must be in non-stop-wince mode. There's nothing like being The Ski Area That Couldn't Hold Its Snow in daily broadcasts beamed to billions around the globe.

We'd take pity on them, but the fact is, everyone was warned. Years ago, when organizers first mentioned hosting the 2010 Games freestyle skiing and snowboard events at Cypress -- at about 3,000 feet, about the same elevation as notoriously soggy Snoqualmie Pass -- a lot of us went, "Huh?"

Even in the past two years, when VANOC successfully tested all its other Olympic venues with World Cup events, Cypress failed miserably, with cancellations each time for warm weather, rain and/or fog. Yet organizers trudged on, most likely in hip waders.

So here we are on the cusp of the Games of the First Spring Olympiad, sponsored by El Nino, and, boom, you've got a major problem. Training runs have been cut, riders are being bused up to Whistler to keep their edge. (There, they are likely to congregate in Ross Rebagliati park, get bored, and ... OK, we're not going to talk about performance-impeding drugs this far before opening ceremonies.)

Up at Cypress ("up" being a relative term) snow reportedly remains on jump ramps, bump runs and the ski-cross course only because of a major transplanted-snow carpet bombing campaign. Every day, they pile it on top. Every day, it melts from beneath.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Nobody has leaked the amount yet (VANOC employees, you have our number) but the price tag -- between the helicopter barrages and the convoy of dump trucks running from inland mountains to Sloppy Cypress -- must be astounding. So much for the break-even Games.

General Jacques Rogge must be having strong second thoughts about that "guarantee" to cover any cost overruns. Our advice to VANOC: Check the fine print for a We-Told-You-Cypress-Would-Never-Work escape clause.

Even more amazing: There's no backup plan. Sorry, check that. There is a backup plan, and it is to ski and ride in glop at Cypress. If even one event planned for there gets canceled, it will be, unfortunately, the likely legacy of these Games, before they ever begin.

That would be unfortunate. We like Canadians. They're our friendly peeps to the North, and, even if they do charge you extra for dipping sauce with your wings in Whistler, we like to see them succeed. (They are so cute when they do.)

So here's the plan: VANOC's chiefs should cut out of whatever Olympic Family buffet line they're in, huddle up, and consider the following generous, Children-of-a-Common-Mother offer, made in the spirit of goodwill as the Olympic flame touches down, in a solemn moment for the world and sponsor Coca Cola, on U.S. soil at Peace Arch Park in Blaine tomorrow:

-- We have connections at Mount Baker Ski Area. They get sick amounts of snow. In fact, the world record for the amount of snowfall in a single season -- 1,140 inches -- was set there in the winter of 1998-99. Even in lean years such as this one, Baker's slopes are fresh, white -- wintry.

-- Call them up, tell them we sent you. Ask for a loan: A couple hundred truckloads of snow in the next week. You pay them back later. Or heck, just bring one dumptruck load of cash and leave it in the parking lot at the White Salmon day lodge. Duncan Howat will give you a receipt.

-- Failing that, consider the ultimate backup. Give up. Admit you made a mistake. Concede that not even the collective will of all of Maple Leaf Nation -- nor the collected effluvium from the nation's entire Zamboni fleet -- can make this event come off with the sort of quality conditions it deserves.

Then just move the whole thing to Mount Baker.

Seriously. It's a two-hour drive from the Olympic Village. It's the least we could do for the nation that supplies us with ... well, all our old Anne Murray 8-tracks.

Besides: All the Olympic snowboarders already know the place. Some of them probably ran the Legendary Banked Slalom race there last weekend. They know where to park.

Yes, you'd have to simplify: Ditch the halfpipe and those sissy freestyle jumps and host a single event: skiers and snowboarders, all racing in one giant pack, ala the old, compound-fracture-inducing 1930s "Silver Skis" race on Mount Rainier. Run it right down the natural halfpipe, AKA creekbed, where they run the Banked Slalom, and on which the world's best riders compete for a trophy comprised mostly of a roll of duct tape.

Three things would happen.

1) NBC would freak out, but then, realizing that they were on to something far cooler than that outdoor hockey game they do every year, make a beeline for Mount Baker with 17.5 tons of video gear.

2) NBC would really freak out upon arriving at Mount Baker and realizing there's no electricity there, and what is produced by generators all gets used up by chairlifts and cash registers.

3) It is very likely that, by the end of the day, some 16-year-old kid who works as a waiter in Glacier would go back to show-and-tell at school next week with an Olympic Gold medal.

How funny would that be?