So Now That We're All Friends

With the continuation of the Toronto Maple Leafs' record breaking absence from the NHL post-season I am about to do something I am absolutely loathe to do two weeks into the month of June: discuss hockey.

Here is an occurrence that is only too common for fans of a proper summer sport who live in the city of Toronto and I presume only more commonly elsewhere across this large and often puzzling country:

Scene 1

Two friends sit down in front of a television excited to watch the ball game. "I can't wait to watch this Jays game! Its so handy that our team is owned by a company that also owns a television station so coverage of our favourite baseball team is basically ensured!"

"That is handy! Quick, turn it over to Sportsnet."

"Hey, wait a second. The main channel seems to be broadcasting a hockey tournament for teenagers. What is this?"

"The Memorial Cup? This isn't even a professional league! It says that the ball game is being played on Sportnet 1."

"I don't have Sportsnet 1! Its too expensive and 90% of the time its just an endless stream of poker tournaments."

"Do people still care about poker?"

"I think so. I think it was because of the movie Rounders."

"Oh. That makes sense. I love Matt Damon."

Sadly, "yeah, I love Matt Damon too."

Scene 2

Man enters a pub and approaches bar. "Excuse me barkeep, but I was hoping I might order a few of your refreshing beverages and sit here in quiet support our local professional baseball club. No need to put the sound on, after all, I'm white and between the ages of 20 and 30 so this mix of classic rock will do nicely. Hey, is that Van Morrison? Neat!"

Bartender drops the glass he was polishing and it shatters on the floor. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING TONIGHT?! THE VANCOUVER CANUCKS ARE PLAYING THE NASHVILLE PREDATORS! ITS GAME THREE! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU CANADA-HATING SON OF A BITCH!"

And scene. Now, as frustrating as it is to not be able to watch a local team at the majority of one's local bars, what I really can't stand is having to listen to supposed Leaf and Canadien and Senator fans cheering for this year's great white hope, the Vancouver Canucks.

So yes, this is going to be a blog post about the trend of Canadian fans jumping on the bandwagon of whichever Canadian team has a chance of winning the Stanley Cup. Not earth-shatteringly original but something needs to be said.

I know some of you out there are already cringing at the inevitability of my making the argument that the Bruins employ more Canadian players (as is strangely always the case with American teams in this scenario) and are thus more qualified to represent our country. But I'm not going to. Or at least, I'm not going make further mention of it. Because—and I really want to stress this—these are professional teams staffed by professional athletes, most of which are playing miles from home and are being paid millions of dollars by large corporations to do so. It is completely ludicrous to affix any sort of patriotic pride in any of these organizations and I can't help but feel that this nationalistic desperation must make us seem, at best, like lousy fans of our local teams and at worst, kind of pathetic.

As you are, no doubt, aware—especially you jerk fans of the Rouge, Bleu et blanc—a Canadian hockey team has not won a National Hockey League title since 1993. What I find puzzling is how Canadian hockey fans insist on bemoaning this fact as if it is evidence that our national sport has been stolen from us and with every American Stanley Cup win, further debased. The same people will look at a second place result for the Canadian national team at an international tournament not as evidence of the growth and strength of our sport internationally but rather, as proof that our children are being neglected by parents who obviously hate them. The actual fact of the matter is, in the NHL, American teams outnumber Canadian clubs roughly four to one. And though this imbalance has increased as a result of the misguided leadership of our league's weasel-faced commissioner, even casual fans will remember that professional hockey teams north of the border have been outnumbered ever since the days when the combined total of professional teams on either side was six. I can't help but feel that viewing a series between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins as Canada versus America is not only neglecting a mathematical reality, it is also doing something that strikes me as, frankly, very American. Surely, Canadian sports fans are sophisticated enough to realize that such jingoistic notions are below them. Surely, we are too enlightened a people to entertain the thought that something as abstract as a country as enormous and diverse as Canada could be reduced to a single philosophical entity. Right?

Many of the people who I have spoken to have argued that the reason they root for the Canadian team at this point in the season is because they know that a Stanley Cup win will mean infinitely more to a Canadian city than it would to an American one. And though I know this to be true, I can't say that I really give a shit. Now, some of you are no doubt thinking to yourselves, “hold on Jarvis, are you saying that if the Edmonton Oilers were playing the Tampa Bay Lightning in the final you'd be rooting for the team from Florida?” To which, I would have to concede...YES, YES, A MILLION TIMES, YES. I would rather the story of the Stanley Cup winning team's victory be told on the third page in the sports section of the Tampa Tribune with no picture below an article about a regular season win by a local high school baseball team, than to have to read a headline that said, “Canadian hockey team not from Toronto ends 18 year Canadian Cup draught.” The reasons for this lack of Canadian camaraderie are twofold: first, I know many people who support Canadian non-Leaf hockey teams. Second, I am very, very petty.

This pettiness is both the result of nature and nurture. As a Leafs fan who has spent considerable amounts of time living both in French and Western Canada, I have frequently had the pleasure of enjoying the unique form of Canadian camaraderie that Torontonians receive from the rest of this country. I, for example, am very skeptical that if in the distant, distant, distant, future, the Leafs were facing the Nashville Predators in the Stanley Cup final, that the rest of country would get behind our boys in blue and happily anoint them “Canada's team.” I think it far more likely that we'd be hearing about how Nashville captain, Shea Webber, is a Canadian hero. Or that if, Predator goalie, Pekke Rinne could be from one other country other than Finland, it would be Canada and that he is especially appreciative of how, even in the winter, the sun still shines.  Of course, I'll admit that the argument equivalent of, “well, they started it,” is not terribly thoughtful or mature but I would be quick to point out that neither is jumping out of your seat because a man in a certain coloured uniform was able to deposited a rubber disc into a twine cage. Neither is breaking into American Apparels because your Montreal Canadiens made it past the second round. Neither is dressing in green spandex suits and taunting opposing team's penalized players. NEITHER IS ANY OF THIS SHIT. What I think is mature is realizing that fundamental to enjoying the pleasure of winning is enduring the pain of losing and I can't help but be annoyed by fans who try to sidestep this reality by forgetting the loyalties instilled in them by a lifetime of supporting a team through thick and thin and arbitrarily rooting for another club because of a ludicrous and misplaced sense of patriotism.

Now, fans of this blog will no doubt scream, “Now James, what happened to all this sports as an articulation of civilization business?! Wouldn't putting down arms and joining forces with your former Canadian foes be a perfect example of how sport can bring us together?” To which, I would answer, nope, not really. I don't know about you but my experience with talking to fellow sports fans about sports has far more frequently been hours of endless drunken arguments about ultimately insignificant topics that have no real answer, than reasoned discussions ultimately ending in a warm and fuzzy realization of our shared humanity. And a large part of why I believe professional sports demonstrates how good we have it is because—similar to having the time to read a good book or learn to play an instrument or write interminable blog posts—having the freedom and time to watch or talk or argue about sports is something that is simply not afforded to the majority of people on this planet. The fact that we can find articles debating whether Michael Jordan or Lebron James is better at playing basketball in the New York fucking Times suggests to me that, relatively speaking, we don't have very much to worry about and for this we should consider ourselves very, very lucky.

I wanted to include a list of reasons that I'm rooting for the Bruins but I feel already as if I have been writing this post for most of my adult life and the fact that I have written university level essays about the Heart of Darkness that are several hundred words shorter than this is starting to irk me. Here's the deal, if the Bruins push it to a game seven tonight I will write that post. If the Canucks put it away, I'll quickly have to forget ever mentioning any of this.

Also, I have a note here that the only bit of sports reporting I did in the first post ended up being false. As you likely know by now, Brett Lawrie was placed on the Las Vegas 51s disabled list because of a broken bone in his hand and will be out for at least two to three weeks. Womp womp.