It’s been almost 22 years since Rick Mercer proved that Americans have, at best, a marginal understanding of Canadian culture, politics, and geography.
On Tuesday, US television network TNT showed us all that not much has changed since, baffling viewers north of the border with a graphic of a horribly-botched Canadian map.
The map takes the Raptors’ “We The North” slogan to extremes as it attempts to show American viewers the locations of Canadian-born NBA players.
And the internet is laying on the ridicule over how hilariously far off they were.
This is insane geography pic.twitter.com/216W7fBcwW
— Patrick Andres (@PAAndres2001) January 11, 2023
Toronto’s position on the map is closer to the real-life location of Polar Bear Provincial Park, and Kitchener is placed near what is actually Peawanuck, Ontario, just south of Hudson Bay, for a difference of over 1,300 kilometers.
Downtown Kitchener according to them pic.twitter.com/So9RQDHQxp
— 1987 (@Basketballniice) January 11, 2023
That’s quite the mileage from the Greater Toronto Area that gave the NBA players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, RJ Barrett, Andrew Wiggins, and Dillon Brooks.
My 3 favorite cities on the Hudson
— BiggestFlamer (@BiggestFlamer) January 11, 2023
Sportsnet’s Faizal Khamisa took the liberty of making some corrections to the bizarre display of geographic ignorance, which also managed to botch the location of Montreal, marking it closer to what is actually Umiujaq, Quebec.
Ok @NBAonTNT the wonderful Sportsnet crew is here to help you out pic.twitter.com/h6GhNBeFK2
— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) January 11, 2023
It was such a bananas error by TNT’s graphics department that even the Toronto Raptors stepped in to comment on the madness, shouting out Canada Basketball as if to say, “wanna go see a dead body.”
Well this is crazy @CanBball send help
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) January 11, 2023
Even if you shift the underlying map, the proportions and distances just seem…off, suggesting the mistake runs deeper than simply a shifted map overlay.
In no way is Kitchener above Toronto in any map lol
— Brad; (@brad_wms92) January 11, 2023
It’s almost as if, amid an internet outage or a moment of extreme and undeserved confidence, a US graphic designer proudly submitted this map to editors without even the slightest inkling that it would be the subject of internet ridicule.
same energy pic.twitter.com/KNJ4zhJPpC
— Canada Basketball (@CanBball) January 11, 2023
Or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to put in the 11 seconds of research required to locate three cities on a map, knowing that domestic audiences probably wouldn’t notice or care.
