Hockey is our game as well.
My father emailed me this Adam Proteau blog post from the Hockey News. I like what Proteau has to say, just for the record I don't think this article is anti-Canadian either. Seriously, have Canadians become that hypersensitive? The comments after in response to the article are even more comical. Everyone take a deep breath. Talk about shooting the messenger full of holes.
As an American who lives close to the Canadian border; I always laughed at the Canadians that said hockey is our game! Really! Funny thing is; hockey is also my favorite game. Lets face it, many American that I know love the game of hockey just as much as the Candians. I don't think that is an awful thing. Does it make Canadians any more passonate about the game of hockey? Also, I think there is enough hockey to go around for us all. I am passionate about the game of hockey as if it was my religion. In heaven there might not be any beer but I am convinced God is a hockey fan. Is there a first Lutheran church of the NHL?
Like millions of others in the know, I see the NHL playoffs for exactly what it is: the greatest sports tournament on the planet. But there’s one aspect of the Stanley Cup chase that grows more embarrassing with every year.
I refer to the “Bring the Cup back to Canada because it’s our game and nobody else's, especially the soft Europeans and frigid Russians and easily-pleased Swedes and largely-disinterested Americans” routine. That’s right – the same act that has the preposterous “No team with a European captain will ever win the Cup” corollary.
It is bloated, blinded, bleating hyper-nationalism – and frankly, it’s gotten sooooo old to me.
Honestly, I just don’t get it. The game is a global phenomenon, played by men and women from all walks of life. Why isn’t that sufficient progress for some Canadians? Which of Canada’s countless national insecurities dictates that allowing other nations into our oh-so exclusive club will somehow cheapen the experience?
Besides, don’t Canadians take great pleasure in pointing out the downside of the type of King-Kong-style, ain’t-we-great, chest thumping normally found in America? Isn’t it enough every other country on Earth would have to turn into hockey factories and pump out elite-level NHLers for decades before they could come close to matching Canada’s impact on the game?
Apparently not. Apparently, too many Canucks have been brainwashed into believing the big lies perpetrated every Saturday night, during every first intermission on Hockey Night In Canada.
Those poor souls have been convinced the game is a divider, not a uniter; that the “Them” in “Us vs. Them” are to be incessantly mocked, derided and sissified; that Canadians were, are, and will forever be, the straw that stirs the sport.
Pompous and delusional in the extreme, I know. Luckily, those falsehoods can be laid to rest once and for all simply by taking a brief look at the favorites to win the NHL’s individual player awards this season.
(Read the rest of the article)
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