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The Super Bowl is fast approaching I'm not a football fan and if a game doesn't need nine guys, a grassy field and a hickory stick, I don't pay any attention so I won't know who played, who won or why until I read the Monday morning papers. I''ll leave it to the network colour commentators and columnists to dissect the Super Bowl battle.

In Canada, it is the commercials that generate the sharpest Super Bowl battles.

Although Canadian football fans pay more attention to the Super Bowl than they do their own Grey Cup CFL championship game in October, the loudest post-game arguments aren't over which team played better, how a numbskull referee interfered with the outcome, or even who won. Rather, they usually start when someone mentions that US commercials for the Super Bowl are blacked out by Canadian stations airing the game, which substitute ads they sell locally.

This outrageous slight leaves Canadians fuming or as fuming as they get if the controversy doesn't involve a brewery changing its recipe.

Far more than the halftime extravaganzas, more than the endless hours of dreary, pre-game analysis, maybe even more than the final score, Canadians ache to see the glittering, multi-million dollar commercial spectaculars that launch splashy, new uberhip products, rejuvenate the careers of washed-up, pop tart singers, and titillate prurient fantasies. After all, by game time, winter has had most Canadians locked indoors for months and they're suffering cabin fever. Any diversion will do and, usually, the game is so boring that it isn't enough.

US companies selling in Canada should wise up to the fact that the audience here actually wants to see their spots. I don't know why they haven't figured out that, for only a few dollars more, they could add Canada to their Super Bowl ad buy and give folks in Muncton, Trois Revoir, Toronto and Moose Jaw something meaningful to jabber about on Monday morning.

So if cultural icons such as iPod and Pepsi are not snapping up the time, who buys Super Bowl commercials up here?

Last year, it was the Conservative Party which ran a series of ads attacking Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion over his position on the environment and Kyoto. Why? Because in the minds of Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper a Conservative leading a minority government trails Dion as the best person to develop policies that meet the challenges of global warming.

In fact, according to a Globe and Mail/CTV News poll, voters say that environmental change is the most

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