How they could have made Own The Podium a success with simple rebranding

The problem with Own The Podium, (apart from its arrogance and inhospitality) is that it took perfectly satisfactory potential outcomes and redefined them as failure. Every Canadian athlete sets a personal best? FAILURE! It's universally acknowledged as the Best Olympics Ever? FAILURE! A world record is set in every event? FAILURE! We win a number of medals proportionate with our population? FAILURE! We top our own Olympic medal count record? FAILURE!

However, if we do own the podium and win the most medals of any country, we've merely met our stated goal. There's no remaining awesome in that achievement.

This could all have been avoided with a more benign branding choice. Instead of Own The Podium, they could have called the program something like Olympic Dreams, with the stated goal of giving Canadian athletes the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give the performance of a lifetime on home ice. The thing where they let Canadian athletes get more practice time in the Olympic facilities? "We have built state-of-the-art sporting facilities using the very latest technology, and our very own athletes have volunteered to test them extensively to make sure that every possible problem has been anticipated and solved once the torch is lit." (Of course, that would have been hella embarrassing once Nodar Kumaritashvili died, but as a branding choice without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it's pretty good.) All the investment that went into technological advances in sporting equipment? "We're using this golden opportunity to foster the Canadian sporting industry and showcase its innovation and expertise on the world stage."

Then they could have proceeded with exactly what they did anyway, the program would have been a success by any definition (Joannie! Tessa&Scott! Alexandre Bilodeau! The hockey teams!), and our record gold medal count would have been the icing on the cake rather than a half-assed attempt to move the goalposts after the fact.