Last year, at the height of the emotions about the U.S. invading Iraq, there was a particularly ugly incident in Montreal.
Some pee-wee hockey players from the Boston area had come up to Montreal for a tourney, in a bus with a big U.S. flag on it.
Sadly, the bus became a target for a bunch of war protesters who behaved in a way that made me ashamed, scared a bunch of innocent kids, and was not Canada at its best.
A year later, and the good folks of Fredericton, New Brunswick, with the help of Premier Bernard Lord and Senator Pete Mahovolich (yes, the former Habs great), invited the kids to come back to Canada and see us in better light, to play in a Friendship Series:
Friendly game mends fences torn by war
They came running off the ice toward the locker room singing God Bless America at the tops of their lungs – and that was just the Canadian kids.
A few Americans bringing up the rear hummed O Canada. One even attempted the lyrics, and soon the anthems melded just as the players themselves had.
Fredericton makes it up to U.S. peewee players in a friendly hockey game
It took a great deal of effort, but some hockey nuts from Fredericton convinced the Brockton players and parents to reconsider. The Fredericton organizers had an idea. They would take the Boxers and a Fredericton team and pool the players, then “draft” them onto a Team Canada and a Team USA. The result would mean balance and ensure new friendships.
“What made the difference for us,” said New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord, who threw government support behind the plan, “was this plan to merge the two teams.” When the chartered bus with the American flag on the side hit the Maine-New Brunswick border this week, the Brockton players were greeted by a huge cheering crowd of Canadians, including hundreds of young hockey players banging their sticks on the pavement. Many of the players on the bus broke down in tears.
They arrived to find a town determined to make it up to them. They immediately went off to play laser tag with their new friends. They would lunch Thursday at the new Dairy Queen. The Stanley Cup was being flown in from the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, and it would go with them out to a shovelled pond at a local golf course where the Massachusetts players would be introduced to outdoor shinny. The major event, however, would be a match between Team Canada and Team USA at the University of New Brunswick’s Aitken Centre.
So, thanks, New Brunswick and Fredericton, for doing a great job to mend fences.
furt
March 27, 2004, 1:44am
2
I am not surprised at all to see people in the Maritimes doing this.
As fine a group as live on the continent.
Or on the planet, for that matter.
Ah, the Cup was there. The Grail. Its very holy power brought peace and friendship.
That makes me feel bad for all the times I’ve sung the Canadian National Anthem:
“Oh Canada,DROP THE PUCK!!! ”
O Canada is a hell of a lot easier to sing than the US anthem.
For the longest time I thought “we stand on guard for thee” was “we stand on garbled knee.”
Just wtf does Canada stand on guard for? Polar bears?
A beautiful story. Nothing quite so disarms and charms me as reconciliation. God bless Canada.
A sweet story. Thanks for sharing it, Northern Piper .
Thanks for posting this, NP .
Now I won’t have to eat Freedom Bacon…
