KEY POINTS:
Precious few sporting events have left New Zealanders with that feelgood factor lately. The 2005 Lions tour was one of the last where we all felt that familiar swell of pride of a little country that punches so far above its weight.
But even the All Blacks are leaving us a bit empty these days. Sean Fitzpatrick's column last week on the void in international rugby sparked a groundswell of agreement.
Which may partly account for the amazing lift in enthusiasm and support for Emirates Team New Zealand in their 5-0 march to the Louis Vuitton Cup and the rematch with Alinghi. Many New Zealanders are heading to Valencia, or staying up, or getting up to watch the racing.
Now, you'd have to say the America's Cup is not the most compelling sports TV. TVNZ's coverage is good and the amazing Peter Montgomery maintains his unparalleled ability to make us excited, even though so few of us understand what is going on.
But that's not all that is happening. Win, lose or draw against Alinghi, Kiwis are recognising that this Team NZ effort represents one of sport's finest recent comebacks.
Even a cursory glance through recent Cup history takes us through the 2003 snapped mast, buckets bailing water out of a faulty boat, the excruciating, misplaced nationalism of the Loyal and Black Heart campaigns and the barbs aimed at Dean Barker.
It was a nightmare in daytime; a wholesale loss of credibility through a chain of under-performances.
Perhaps the 2003 Alinghi thrashing was summed up best in the words of the unidentified crewman who said, in tones caught perfectly if accidentally by TV's effects mikes: "This f****** boat." In that sentence lay all the exasperation and helpless anger at a job poorly done.
But, as this column has pointed out before, we don't do failure well as a nation, do we? None of this learning from our mistakes and coming out harder next time, as the Aussies frequently do. Instead, we poked holes in Barker with the sharp sticks of our discontent.
Not up to it, we all said. Too soft. Hasn't got the killer instinct. We compared him unfavourably to the chilled, hatchet-man certainty of one Russell Coutts.
Barker and team leader Grant Dalton have pulled off a remarkable coup a few, short years later. With a budget dwarfed by the likes of BMW Oracle and Alinghi, and with boats pulled together with a great deal of sophistication and know-how but still relying on liberal dollops of good old No 8 wire mentality, Dalton has shaped a team leaner and meaner than we ever expected.
He has done so in a way that has rung bells with many Kiwis. No braggadocio or mind games, just good old-fashioned hard work, determination and straight talking.
One of the problems facing the America's Cup and Team New Zealand has been the corporatisation of the event and the sport. The noise over Coutts' and Butterworth's flight to Alinghi has been drowned out by the sound of marching feet of Kiwi sailors to many other syndicates, including Oracle and Luna Rossa.
There it is - that word, syndicate. It's harder for us to identify with a team of mixed nationalities and corporate alignment, especially when so many New Zealanders sailing for so many other teams muddies the waters of nationalism. It begins to look like a corporate hospitality event as opposed to a world cup of yachting. It's harder to ... belong.
That's the triumph of Dalton and Barker. Even cynics like me can appreciate the sheer New Zealandness of what Team NZ have achieved. It is the mouse-that-roared syndrome all over again, never mind the American accents or European money.
It stems from Dalton running his team like, well, like the All Blacks - hard-nosed, working to a game plan and effort, effort, effort. He runs the show but also packs the sails.
And then there's Barker. Maybe he's a bit baby-faced or just a bit nice. We - and many others around the world - questioned his ability up to and including this regatta.
In the Louis Vuitton finals, he answered that criticism perfectly; in a very New Zealand way - not many words but a powerful lot of action. Barker proved to a nation of people prepared to believe the worst that he is the best or among the best.
He has proven that, whatever the result against Alinghi. If, say, Team NZ do not win back the Cup because they have a slower boat, or even if Barker makes a mistake, he has already achieved something he has never managed before.
He has proved to us that he has what it takes; he has the talent. Now we wait to see if he has the boat.
