Monday, June 12, 2006
While there is a Stanley Cup hockey playoff at the moment (even involving a Canadian team this year), you'd never know it in the midst of genuine World Cup fever right now, literally surrounding me as I do my commute to work.
On the bus-ride up there are a plethora of national flags attached to many of the cars that pass by: Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Trinidad and the single red cross of the English soccer team (is it still PC to say "soccer" instead of "football"? ;-) go flapping as the fans inside the cars go zipping by. More amusing are the ones who are either ardent fans or nationalists or both, their cars festooned with flags attached to each window, and perhaps with a flag windsock as well for good measure.
No such signs of comparable hockey madness anywhere to be seen. It doesn't even come up for discussion. The sports bars' widescreen TV displays are tuned solely to World Cup games, judging by the signs in their windows.
Admittedly the World Cup only happens every four years, so comparisons to the Olympics might be more appropriate, but I can't help but wonder if this signals a subtle shift in what has been thought of as Canadians' unofficial national sport.
Undoubtedly last year's NHL strike didn't help things much, and if the idea of having an ice hockey championship, a wintertime sport if ever there was, happening when most people are already heading in droves to their summer cottages doesn't strike one as being absurd, well...
While I am not a sports fan, I find it interesting how the ardency of local World Cup fans has eclipsed the hockey playoffs in terms of relative importance. While things would almost certainly be different if the Leafs were actually in the playoffs (I am not sure I will live long enough to see *that* happen at this point), and there is more than a small dose of nationalist pride with the World Cup, it seems like hockey has a long way to go to in order to attract the same numbers of ardent fans.
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