How sport can unite a divided country
It has been going on so long that I cannot remember exactly when we began our annual summer pilgrimage to Cape Breton’s luminous Margaree Valley.¡
I believe, with as much certainty as I have about anything, that last Friday night was the first time that my three pals and I halted our usual apres-golf-and-flyfishing activities to gather around a laptop screen.¡
There wasn’t a true hockey fan in the group. One of us had watched half a period of this year’s Stanley Cup finals. The rest, me included, hadn’t witnessed a single goal or faceoff during the entire NHL season that ended Monday night.¡
Yet, I like to think that we are men who understand that some occasions matter more than others. And so, there we were around the old-school wooden table, watching the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers on a screen the size of a folded newspaper because we felt something historic was perhaps underway.¡
It brought back memories for at least two in the group: A summer night eight years ago when each of us, with our spouses, were in rental cabins hundreds of miles apart. At precisely the same moment each couple was staring at their respective televisions, watching the grainy images of The Tragically Hip’s emotional last concert in Kingston, Ont.¡
I recall that my wife and I had to work a bit to catch the concert. Our cabin had multiple remote controls, none of which seemed to work. It took a couple of back-and-forth phone calls with the owner before the old set flickered to life.
If anything, those small obstacles just made the experience more memorable. That night, shedding a few tears watching Gord Downie sing what was left of his mammoth heart out, was so deeply communal and so quintessentially Canadian, that I remember it still. I may never forget it.
Usually, it is sport that brings this country together. As it did on Friday night, as it has been doing as we watched the Oilers, carrying an entire country’s hopes and dreams on their jerseyed backs, claw back into the Stanley Cup finals.¡
This country, in some ways, is as divided as it has ever been by politics and geography, religion and economics. Finding common ground, something we can all agree upon, is rare enough to be cherished.¡
Sport, so often, can be that bridge, even though it is the most tribal of cultures. Allegiances form early, sometimes, like politics, inherited from parents and even grandparents.¡
Once decided, those loyalties are fierce. Usually, barring something monumental like Wayne Gretzky going stateside, they are unwavering right to the grave.
And why not?¡
There is a shared identity, a sense of belonging, for those who fall under a team’s sway. It takes us back to when we were young and played those games ourselves.¡
It is nice to forget about the tribulations of life for a little while as you root for a favourite team, in a zerosum contest that is mercifully straightforward. Just as there is a pleasure in basking in your team’s reflected glory. And a joy in really caring deeply about something.¡
There is, of course, a hierarchy among fans. The diehards who have been with a team through thick and thin, rightly sneer at the rest of us: the bandwagon jumpers, who climb aboard sensing that a team is on the cusp of greatness. The late-comers, like my friends and me, unexpectedly swept up in a team’s fate.¡
When that happens, when a whole country bands together, it can be a giddy, powerful thing. We are no longer Albertans or Nova Scotians, NDPers or Liberals, Catholics, or Jews, rich or poor.
We are Canadians, as one cheering on the Toronto Blue Jays on their march to successive World Series in 1992 and 1993, and that city’s Raptors on the road to winning the NBA title in 2019.
We remain a hockey country. Which is why the country’s communal ice rink memories linger through time.
Even a basketball guy like me remembers Sidney Crosby’s “golden goal” against the United States in the 2010 Olympics — which Globe and Mail columnist Cathal Kelly Monday called “the last time it felt like we were all in it together” — along with the celebratory honking car horns I heard walking my dog afterwards through the night streets of Halifax.¡
Just as I remember Paul
Henderson’s winning goal in the ’72 Summit series against the USSR. Not because I watched it on TV as it happened but because I was shooting hoops outside on September 28, when I heard the triumphant cries rise from surrounding houses.¡
I have a history of missing big sporting moments. While living in Toronto, I went to bed and missed Joe Carter hitting his bottom of the ninth walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series.
Vowing never again to let this happen, I fortified myself with a late afternoon coffee on Monday. We don’t get cable, so a free streaming service had to be found.¡
The reception was patchier than during the long-ago final Tragically Hip concert. But I could see enough to get the overall narrative.¡
For a while, here was hope that the Oilers' magical comeback would end with a historic triumph.¡
As the final minutes ticked away, my spirits sagged. By the time the Stanley Cup was being passed around by the Florida players, the euphoria had been replaced by an empty feeling.¡
With no stomach for the televised celebrations, I stepped out on the front porch for a little air. Other than the falling rain, it was quiet out. As you would expect when a nation, united by a hockey team’s heroics, mourns together.