Team Bake Canada – Yay or Nay?

For the first time ever at Bakery Showcase, Team Bake Canada will be
strutting its stuff, demonstrating some of its unique products, talking
about what it was like to train for the Louis Lesaffre Cup, and, more
recently, what it was like to do demos at Europain in Paris. What do you think about Team Bake Canada? How do you think a team such as this can benefit the baking industry in Canada, both here at home and on the international baking scene? Is the team just wasting its time?

For the first time ever at Bakery Showcase, Team Bake Canada will be strutting its stuff, demonstrating some of its unique products, talking about what it was like to train for the Louis Lesaffre Cup, and, more recently, what it was like to do demos at Europain in Paris. 
More than support in the form of rah-rah-rah!, way to go guys, pat-on-the-back, the team needs financial support. It needs money. It’s not cheap to train for competitions like Louis Lesaffre and Le Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. It requires time and money.
Team USA, working with a reported budget of almost $150,000 (all of which is supplied by industry sponsors) first entered the Coupe du Monde in 1994. In 1996, it upset the French team with a first-place win in the Baguette and Specialty Breads category. Team USA followed that up three years later in 1999 with an even bigger upset: it took the title, and did the same thing in 2005, coming second in the 2002 event. These wins have done much for the baking industry in the USA, not the least of which has been boosting the image of the industry with frequent media appearances and making the baking world look a lot more interesting to the young people who will be its future.
Canada’s baking industry could garner the same kind of attention as the U.S one, could attract the same excitement as those booths at the CRFA show with the celebrity chefs, could generate the same excitement as a dexterous pizza spinner. Our bakers aren’t any less talented or skilled or gifted. They just haven’t been able to round up the right support.
What do you think about Team Bake Canada? How do you think a team such
as this can benefit the baking industry in Canada, both here at home
and on the international baking scene? Is the team just wasting its
time?