The problem with hockey fans is that they don’t seem to realize that not everyone is a hockey fan, that they are, in fact, a minority. A very loud minority certainly, but a minority nonetheless. You may have guessed that I’m not a hockey fan. Not at all. I have a basic understanding of the game. I see why it’s exciting to some people. It’s just not my thing. My question: why can’t hockey fans understand that?
After expressing my disinterest aloud, I’ve received blank stares and expressions of disbelief. I’ve been asked more than once if I am, in fact, Canadian. The insinuation being that if I’m Canadian, I have no choice but to like hockey. I must be a hockey fan. There’s a law of some sort. I can only be insulted. (I’m also not a Neil Young fan. Does that make me un-Canadian? Not the same, perhaps, particularly considering he hasn’t lived here for decades.)
The Canadian media doesn’t help, and I’m not just talking about Don Cherry, the Krusty the Klown of Canadian television. One of the headline stories on the news last night was the return home of the victorious Candian Junior hockey team from Switzerland, gold medals in tow. A big deal in the hockey world, yes, but why do the rest of us have to listen to it? Leave it as part of the sports segment where it belongs. Apparently a slow news day. Nothing actually important happened anywhere in the world yesterday.
During the lockout/strike/whatever a couple of years ago, the lack of progress on a resolution was faithfully reported on by everyone every day. For many millions of people across the country, this was a case of “How can I miss you if you won’t go away?”
Hockeyville, or Hockeytown, or whatver that show was last year to pick the town with the most hockey nobs in it. Ratings were good, apparently, as a new edition is going to run shortly.
Advertisers try to stir up feelings of nationalism and channeled to their products by linking them in some fashion to hockey. (Buy a Ford. We love hockey. Look, here’s Gretzky.)
Several years ago, the CBC ran a wonderful series entitled “Canada: A People’s History”. Recently, it ran a new series that seems to be billed as a sequel. ”Hockey: A People’s History”. The link is cheap, annoying, and lessens the original. I expect better from our national broadcaster. Apparently, I shouldn’t.
But it’s not just the media. A recent Prime Minister parachuted a former (fairly famous) hockey player as a star candidate into an election a few years ago. Once elected, that Prime Minister then put that hockey player in cabinet of all places. Said hockey player ran for leadership of the Liberal party not long ago. Thankfully, he had no chance whatsoever. It would have been nearly as bad as electing an actor. (I have nothing against Ken Dryden. He may have been and done many great things since retiring from the rink, but so much was made by the media of him being the Ken Dryden of Montreal Canadiens fame that nothing else seemed to matter. That’s the problem.)
The small town I live in spent a huge amount of it’s budget over a couple of years building a two-rink community centre. Nothing else in it. Oh there’s a small private gym, an athletic goods store, and a banquet hall, but no swimming pool, gymnasium or anything else that would make it a community centre. It’s a hockey centre.
And why is the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series part of our national identity?
It’s a winter sport that starts in September and ends in June. This may be the Great White North, but I’m pretty sure winter isn’t nine months long even in most of the far north of the country, never mind that there are hockey teams in southern US cities that don’t even have winter.
Children of fans are indoctrinated early. An eight-year-old Senators fan will waste plenty of breath telling you that the Leafs suck. An eight-year-old Leafs fan will do the same thing for the Sens.
Pervasive, invasive, populated by overgrown, steroid-pumping children whose behaviour is barely better than rock stars, it’s inescapable. I can hum the Hockey Night in Canada theme song - who can’t, considering how often it’s drilled into everyone’s eardrums - but with all due respect to Stompin’ Tom Connors, I can name many better games.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your hockey. And many, many of them are far, far more important.
