The thing I heard that totally sounded bizzare was that Nickelback is supposed to be the most hated band. Now I'm not sure if that was in North America or just Canada, but who or whatever said that is full of it. Nickelback is a great band and does have some good truthful lyrics to it, unlike something like rap its all just a bunch of rhyming nonsense with no morals to it. I loved "if Today was your last Day"'s lyrics because it is so true.
It's like that here in the UK, too - you get laughed at if you like Nickelback! But I agree with you, a lot of their songs are brilliant, especially compared to the other crap that gets churned out by the music industry these days. The "Nickelback = lame" thing seems to have just been spread by the internet.
Thankfully here, I have yet to hear of someone being laughed at because they like them, if that happened to me I'd say Well it's at least a lot better than Rebecca black, Justin Bieber or some song that says "ass" throughout the song.