Happy Canada Day!

While you’re caught up in Team USA World Cup fever, my focus today is on the fact that it’s Canada Day. As an annual service to readers, here are some of the ways New Yorkers can share in Canada’s birthday celebration.

1. Look up to the Empire State Building tonight. It will be lit in red and white.

2. Join Canadians at Mama’s Bar during the World Cup game, as they remind anyone who will listen that the Olympic gold medal in hockey is the only sports championship that mattered this year.

2. Watch Molson’s hit YouTube video, featuring a beer fridge that automatically opens when someone sings “O Canada.”


3. Visit Black Seed Bagel for a hybrid between the rival New York and Montreal-style bagels.

4. Subscribe to ESPN2 so you can catch this season’s Canadian Football League action. Next telecast is July 5th wnen the Roughriders take on the Argonauts.

5. Prepare some Nanaimo Bars. Not even the City of Nanaimo fully understands how this iconic Canadian dessert originated. But it’s tasty. (And if you don’t want to get into the kitchen yourself, ex-pat bakery Canadian Sweets and Treats will ship a box to you.)

6. Pack your bags for the July 3rd Carnival Splendor cruise from New York to New Brunswick. While you’re there, buy a copy of The Daily Gleaner. Because there’s no newspaper with a better name than the Daily Gleaner.

7. Spend some time reading, listening or watching the work of some of the other Canadians in our midst. Among them: Author Malcolm Gladwell, Fox News weather forecaster Janice Dean, New York Observer Contributing Editor Duff McDonald and NPR host Ophira Eisenberg.

8. And please join me at Joe’s Pub tonight for either of the two Canada Day sets. I lead the national anthem ahead of Jeff Breithaupt’s annual selections from the Canadian songbook.

Sadly, I also wanted to include the burger and poutine restaurant Big Smoke on my list. But the New York outpost of the Canadian burger seller isn’t open yet.

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