Hockey Night In Canada host Ron MacLean (The Canadian Press)It's long been said of CBC's Hockey Night In Canada that the on-air talent has become bigger than the program.

In case anyone was dubious of that, long-time host Ron MacLean confirmed it Wednesday night during the opening of the New York Rangers-Washington Capitals Stanley Cup playoffs. MacLean likened high-paid NHLers to — wait for it — police officers and firefighters who died during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on those two cities. Or at least evoked the tragedy.

Does there really need to be an explanation of how that's way off base? Does MacLean owe the country an explanation? No to the first, yes to the latter.

(Update, 1 p.m. May 10: Here is MacLean and the CBC's clarification: "Sports has proven a worthy training ground in nurturing the qualities which beget that spirit. To say he plays like a firefighter or a policeman would instantly conjure the traits an athlete most desires, especially in New York and Washington. There could be no higher praise of a player, no greater choice of a role model."

Hockey blogger Scott Wasilewski read that on Twitter as MacLean saying, "I'm not saying hockey players are like first responders. I'm just saying hockey players are LIKE first responders.")

One has to wonder how fast MacLean would be disciplined or worse if he uttered such hogwash on an American network. (Sports media guru Howard Bloom tweeted that if MacLean worked for ESPN "he would have been suspended or fired for the obscenity he uttered on air tonight." ) Since it's an icon such as MacLean, since it's CBC and people in Canada tend not to do manufactured outrage and overreaction quite like Americans do  — that's how we roll — he might get away without serious repercussions. For anyone who thinks it's a non-story, well, U.S. media outlets are reporting on it, so it will be one.

Being forgiving is not the worst thing, of course. It's only words and no one will get sick or die from what MacLean said, except perhaps from laughing. But the bar should be set pretty high for a man who has hosted Canada's longest-running TV franchise, Hockey Night in Canada, for 25 years.

Via Puck Daddy, here is the video:

Eight-team NBA all-star Steve Nash in Toronto on Tuesday (Chris Young, The Canadian Press)

When Steve Nash was criticized in recent years for not putting his battered body through a summer with Canada's men's basketball team, many defended him by pointing out the program needed cash more than Nash. Now it has the man and might have the money, too.

Nash's return to the Canada Basketball fold has long been rumoured, which means Tuesday's announcement in Toronto that the country's greatest hoopster of all time will become the general manager of the national men's team is no great shock. But obviously more needs to be done than add NBA legend and stir. The big takeaway is that the blueprint involves a two-pronged strategy to garner more corporate support for the program and in turn, encourage the country's premier players to don the Maple Leaf for international play. Having the country's most recognizable athlete globally accept a big role should open some doors in the private sector for the program, whose track record of one Olympic berth in the past six quadrennials has knocked it off the map. Canada's Own The Podium program also focuses more on individual than team sports.

"Canada Basketball has been huge in my career but it's also been hamstrung on many occasions — daily, yearly — in its existence because of funding," Nash, who deflected questions about whether he might sign with the Toronto Raptors this summer, said at Tuesday's press conference at the Air Canada Centre. "We've never had the funding to do the things or supply the resources that we wanted to. But now, because of the power and the human resource and the capital of our Sixth Man Group [a group of private investors supporting the team], we have the potential to do some amazing things.

"We want to be playing in the Olympics perennially and we want to be in the hunt for medals," Nash added.

Marg McGregor (shown in 2010) served 12 years as Canadian Interuniversity Sport CEOIt should be said Marg McGregor at least started a conversation in this country about defining university sport. So it's intriguing that after a dozen years as CEO of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, McGregor has left just as the debate picks up steam.

It doesn't take Gary Bettman to know the head honcho of any large sports organization is a lightning rod. While CIS doesn't get much media play outside of the Vanier Cup, it is large to the point of unwieldiness with members spread from Prince George, B.C., to St. John's. That means myriad frustrations over the status of university sport — examples include not having a live TV broadcast for the national championships in men's basketball for two years in a row, struggles with competitive balance in major team sports and above all else, a lack of investment in the system — were bound to be piled at McGregor's feet.

That might be easy way out, though. The best way to sum up McGregor's tenure — 12 years is a long time to run anything unless it's family business — is that she started some momentum to perhaps change the look of university sport in Canada. Whether that change will take remains to be seen.

Mark Tewksbury (L), Adam van Koeverden and members of the synchronized swimming team at Monday's launch.

There's always plenty of buzz around Canada's Olympic athletes leading up to the Games themselves, but it's easy for them to fall off the public radar between Olympics. The Canadian Olympic Committee is trying to change that with a new campaign they unveiled Monday, tagged "Give Your Everything" (or "Tout Donner" en français). The campaign shines spotlights on several Canadian Olympic athletes who will be heading to London this summer, and it does so through billboards, traditional television ads and additional online-only videos. The videos were created by veteran commercial director Henry Lu, the man who produced Nike's original "Just Do It" ad and has worked with companies such as Google and Walmart; he volunteered plenty of hours to make this happen. Here's one of the online videos, profiling famed Canadian kayaker Adam van Koeverden, who holds three Olympic medals from Athens and Beijing:

More videos can be found on the Canadian Olympic Committee's site. They're pretty interesting looks behind the scenes of what it takes to be an Olympic athlete, particularly on the training front. COC chief marketing officer Derek Kent said in an unveiling Monday in Toronto that the initial focus was on television ads, but the content available led the committee to go beyond that.

The Kentucky Derby's often seen as an American tradition, but Saturday's run for the roses had plenty of Canadian content; surprising winner I'll Have Another is owned by Canadian businessman J. Paul Reddam and was ridden by 25-year-old jockey Mario Gutierrez, making his Derby debut after getting his career started at Vancouver's Hastings Racecourse. Both have been in the racing industry for some time, but Saturday's Derby victory is their biggest accomplishment to date.

Guiterrez is originally from Veracruz, Mexico, but Canada is where his career as a jockey really took off. He's been racing at Hastings for six years, and as The Vancouver Sun's Tiffany Crawford reports, plenty of patrons there were cheering him on on the simulcast Saturday:

Football players and filmmakers. The arts crowd and the gridiron crowd. You'd be forgiven if you think there's got to be a great divide (or line of scrimmage, I guess) between them.

In celebrating the year of the 100th Grey Cup Game, the CFL's television partner, TSN, has decided to blur that line in the name of telling 8 compelling and historic football tales.

In the midst of Toronto's annual Hot Docs Festival today, 8 prominent Canadian film makers were introduced, each of them at various stages of completing their particular chapters in this Fall's series entitled: "Engraved On A Nation: Stories Of The Grey Cup, The CFL And Canada."

How are these for football topics? The FLQ. World War II casualties. Cancer. A plane crash. Racism. The National Energy Program. Domestic violence. All of these do more than make a casual appearance in some of these films. They do no worse than form a partnership with football in telling the stories of people like Jake Gaudaur, Anthony Calvillo, Chuck

Midfielder Rhian Wilkinson, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, keeper Karina LeBlanc and FIFA President Sepp Blatt …

The best women's soccer players in the world will be coming to six cities across Canada in the summer of 2015. FIFA president Sepp Blatter was at Ottawa's Parliament Hill Friday to make the official announcement of which Canadian cities were selected as hosts for the 2015 Women's World Cup, and, as expected, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, Winnipeg and Moncton were chosen. (Toronto declined to bid for the event thanks to preparations for hosting the Pan-Am Games that same summer.) That should set the stage for a tremendous and historic event, one of the most high-profile women's sports competitions in the world, and one that should provide a chance to see the Canadian team excel.

The Women's World Cup isn't as well-known as the men's competition, and that's understandable considering both its recent beginnings (the tournament only started in 1991, compared to the men's tournament's debut in 1930) and the lower degree of interest many have in women's soccer. However, it's still an incredible tournament in its own right, and it's the largest single-sport women's event in the world. What's also notable is that the Women's World Cup is on the rise; it's come a long way from the initial domination of the Americans, Norwegians and Germans to a place where there are plenty of contenders around the world, as exemplified by the Japanese team's surprising victory over the U.S. in the 2011 tournament final.

Andrew Wiggins drives to the basket during last month's Nike Hoop Summit (Sam Forencich, Getty Images)Chances are, Andrew Wiggins would be a bigger deal in his homeland if people knew how the basketball phenom is fuelled by his Canadian identity.

Hoopheads across Canada have kept tabs on Wiggins' progress since he was an adolescent tearing up the parquet in his native Thornhill, Ont., a Toronto suburb. It should only be a matter of when the astonishingly gifted 17-year-old small forward becomes a household name on par with any teenaged hockey prodigy whom Canadians have anointed The Next One. Rivals.com has ranked Wiggins as the best player in his 2014 high school recruiting class. That means there's a chance he could be a top NBA pick come 2015 — or sooner, since he could fast-track the last two years of high school. Last year, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Tristan Thompson became the first Canadian NBA lottery pick when he taken No. 4 overall. Wiggins might improve on that mark.

As Eric Bossi at Yahoo! Sports' Rivals.com illustrates, there need not be a question mark attached to headlines proclaiming that Wiggins is Canada's next hoops phenom.

Wiggins has a blend of skill, athleticism, feel for the game and desire to win that is unmatched in the sophomore class. The top spot is something that he doesn't take lightly.

"It's an honor coming from Canada and being classified as the top prospect in another country," Wiggins told Rivals.com. "I just try to stay humble and it means another year of hard work for me because I know there are other hungry kids out there who want to be No. 1, too." (Rivals.com)

There's ample reason for Canadians to get on Wiggins' bandwagon beyond the obvious, which is that he's really, really good.