Calgary is poised to remove checking from young folk’s hockey. I’m concerned that young people playing hockey won’t be exposed to learning how to give or take a proper check, then they’ll get destroyed when they get into a league that has hitting. Then I remember that they’re trying to completely pussify the whole NHL, so I guess it’ll be a moot point.
In other news, we’re going to see a lacrosse game tonight that still allows players to be young, feisty men. 
Neither have I.
Canadiens fans are a minority in places like Hamilton but they’re certainly not rare, by any means. (In fact, in Hamilton specifically, they’re probably on the rise, since Hamilton is now Montreal’s AHL affiliate.)
I hate the Leafs, HATE the leafs, wish them nothing but misery and disgrace - I’m a Sens fan - but this is just rude and unfair and completely, totally untrue.
The reason people are Leafs fans is because they’re Leafs fans. They became Leafs fans because their parents were Leafs fans, or beause that was the easiest team to see on TV where they grew up, or beause they fell in love with them during the 92-93 Cup run, or the powerful teams at the turn of the century, whatever. People join to a team because it’s a local team, or for family reasons, or because of a particular player, or whatever. Why am I a Sens fan? Because I fell in love with a plucky little team during its first playoff run. Why am I a Blue Jays fan? Because they were the local team. But I still have a spot in my heart for the Phillies. Why? Because when I was first getting into baseball they had Mike Schmidt and at the time (1981) he was the best ballplayer on the planet. No other reason.
You don’t abandon your favourite team because they suck. For one thing, no team sucks forever, and if you don’t believe me then, sir, I present to you the Pittsburgh Penguins, who twice now have gone from being a hapless doormat to being a wonderful team. Or the Boston Red Sox, a team that had a history of cowardice, disgrace and failure on a mythical scale. How about the Red Wings? Does no one else remember how terrible they were before building a dynasty in the 90s?
For another, if you DID abandon a sucky team then no team would have any fans except the last one to win a championship.
I assure you, being surrounded by Leafs fans, that they are not revelling in a perverse joy in this. They’re angry, and they’re depressed. Their chanting “Let’s go Blue Jays!” at a recent home game was a deliberate insult. One of my best friends in the world is a die hard fan and is very, very knowledgable about hockey, and he’s really upset about this season are barely wants to talk hockey at all right now. There’s no perverse joy he’s getting out of this.
The Leafs aren’t by any means the worst franchise in sports, either; I mean, have a look at Cubs fans. The Cubs haven’t won the World Series in ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR YEARS. Seriously. The Indians are now up to 64 years of waiting. The Pittsburgh Pirates have now amassed 19 consecutive seasons of losing records, an accomplishment unmatched in any North American professional team sport. The Buffalo Bills, need I say more. The LA Kings and St. Louis Blues both entered the NHL the same year the Leafs started theiur Cup drough and have no Cups to show. Almost half the teams in the NFL have never won a Super Bowl in the 46 years it’s been played. Surely not all these fans would abandon their beloved teams?
No, you keep cheering for your favourite team (if the team moves, or you move, I can see switching) because they’re your favourite team. You can’t stop loving a team because they stink. For one thing, it’s just not easily done. For another, it would defeat the whole purpose. Cheering just for whomever is good now takes all the emotional attachment out of it; it’s like cheering for the sun to come up. Sticking with a team gives you the emotional highs and lows, the ongoing, life-long narrative, the story and characters and feelings that are what’s best about being a sports fan. That’s the stuff that makes a game and a team a lifelong friend, a shared experience with other fans, a true pastime, something to take away the worries of everyday life and allow yourself to be immersed for a few hours in a continuous drama that you know will go on and always be there. Following one team gives you victory and defeat, amazing comebacks and heartbreaking letdowns, disappointment and poignancy and elation. What joy I’ve gotten from that! The lows are as important as the highs; they give texture and meaning and history and make the high points mean something. Can you experience that if you’re just latching on to whomever looks good right now? Not at all.
Suppose the Leafs win the Stanley Cup in 2019. (The fact is that it’s just as likely as any one of the other 29 teams.) Imagine the joy their fans will feel, the weight from their shoulders, the partying and the kissing of strangers. And then the team’s history will move on; a disappointing second-round exist in 2020 with finger-pointing and coach-questioning, another great run in 2021, a shocking tenth-place finish in 2022, then a series of… well, whatever happens, new history and flow and texture will be part of the history of the team, woven into the texture of the rest of the NHL and Toronto’s sports history that can be passed on to kiss and shared and laughed and groaned about around the TV as Canadians gather to watch their boys hit the ice. Ah, that’s what sports is all about.
In case people don’t wander into the Elections forum - thought I’d let you know that I"ve started a thread on the Alberta election there: Meanwhile in Alberta - is a once-in-a-liftetime electoral shift in the offing?
The fine quality of that essay aside, I’m pretty sure Malthus was making a joke.
At least, it’s nearly the same joke a friend of mine made a while ago; he’s born and raised in a Leafs household and cheers for them too.
Yes, it was a good piece, RickJay. As a Riders fan, I can relate to droughts…in both senses of the word.
Thanks for that Rick.
You summed it up perfectly. I immigrated to Canada in 1968 as a 6 year old boy. Hockey? What’s that? My dad started watching The Leafs with a neighbour, and of course so did I. This was a year after the Leafs won the cup and they were a storied franchise. In the 1970s and 1980s Harold Ballard owned the team and didn’t give a shit about their winning record. There were some exciting players like Sittler, Salming, McDonald, but it was a wasteland under Ballard.
When Ballard died the Leafs had a great resurgence in the 1990s and a couple of years into the 2000s. It’s been very difficult since the lockout and the new CBA, but they’ll be back. It’s taking longer that anyone wanted, but they’ll be back.
I’ve been watching this team since 1968 because my dad, a Scottish immigrant, watched them and loved the game. I can’t imagine seriously denigrating a fan of any team because of the team they cheer for. It’s just a sport. I want my team to win; I want your team to lose. Other than that, let’s just enjoy the sport.
Another “excellent post, RickJay.” Sums things up well.
What baffles me about sports fan is cheering for a team that isn’t the local one. I have a friend who moved from Calgary (He grew up in Canmore) to Vancouver. He hates the Flames and supports the Canucks. Yet during the run to the Stanley cup he now supports the Bruins. Wtf?
I knew a guy who was a fan of the Blackhawks never having been to Chicago. What makes a person cheer for any team other than the home one?
Eh, everyone finds their own rhythm. I don’t care much about hockey, so I ask Jim which team from the west is doing the best come play-off time, and that’s the team I cheer for. Probably the best part about doing that is telling die-hard hockey fans that I do that.
By the way, the lacrosse game was excellent yesterday. You gotta love a game where one player can grab another player in a headlock, ram him up against the boards and kind of smear his head along the glass, and it’s a completely legal hit. 
I can understand that to an extent. After all, there are no NFL teams in Canada, yet among Canadian NFL fans, there are favourite teams. For obvious reasons, none are what we might consider to be local. I certainly follow and cheer for the San Francisco 49ers, though I was a fan long before I ever visited San Francisco.
But otherwise, odd things can happen. I recall a childhood friend, whom I knew when we were both children in Toronto, whose favourite team was the Buffalo Sabres. Why, when my friend’s favourite team should have been the Leafs? Well, his father was a lawyer who represented certain Sabres’ players in contract negotiations. My friend had met a number of the players since they had been guests in his home; and so, to him, the Sabres were the team. Another friend enjoyed watching Bobby Hull play for the Blackhawks, so he was a Chicago fan; and another (for some reason) picked up on Red Berenson when he was with the Red Wings, so he was a Detroit fan.
There can be many reasons.
See above. I will say that Alberta NHL teams seem to bring out the worst in many fans–having lived in both Calgary and Edmonton, I have seen the “how do you dare cheer for any team other than the Flames/Oilers? [as the case may be]” a number of times. Some fans in this province take it way more than seriously, and take it farther than they should.
I end up defending them in court. 'Nuff said.
I imagine you are taking my quip rather more seriously than it was made. :eek:
I dunno, this being the dope and all, perhaps we need a smiley more obvious than (
) to indicate that a JOKE is being made, not a SERIOUS comment.
For the record - as I guess such things must be spelled out in black and white - I do not ACTUALLY think that " the only reason to be a Leafs fan was sheer perversity in the face of their continued awfulness". There are lots of reasons to root for the local team, many of which you have spelled out.
Tell me about it. When I lived in Edmonton it was always ABC ABC (anybody but Calgary) and Calgary is Flames this, Flames that. Some idiot tried intimidating me in Calgary for having an Oilers keychain on my backpack (which my Dad had given me and I liked because it was cutesy not because it was Oilers). Since I don’t have any particular allegiances I just cheer for where I live now, if I ever so happen to be watching a game. About all I like to watch is curling and lacrosse though.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ban-gideon-bible-handout-public-schools-sparks-torrent-100007435.html
I had no idea that Bibles were still being handed out in some public schools. Reading about the threats that some of the Board has received it’s easy to see why there needs to be a complete separation of church and state and the sooner the better.
“I’m a Christian and we need Christianity in the schools!”
“No, religion should be taught at home or church”
“Fuck you! I’ll kill you!!”
Vancouver has banned bagpipe playing in public. From the Globe and Mail: Vancouver’s bagpipe ban prompts outcry.
Wonder what our own Northern Piper would say to this?
Yep. It’s out here as well: Handing out Bibles in school a concern to parent.
Oddly enough, the above occurred in Cardston, Alberta; a very conservative and religious community. The town was settled by Mormons, and today, most of the residents are Mormons. The town is officially dry, and with the exception of a couple of gas stations, pretty much the only things open on Sundays are churches. In other words, it’s about the last place you’d expect to find a stink raised about handing out Bibles in schools.
I can’t get to the link. Is it that these are Mormon bibles or other Christian bibles. I can see why Mormons might object to having something other then ‘their’ version of religion being shoved down kids throats.
I can’t believe this is even still done in 2012 - Bibles have no place behing handed out in public schools unless in a world religions or historical context class. I have a rather high level of disdain for those who would force their religion - any religion - onto others. Keep it to yourself, keep it at home and in your place of worship. I don’t mind if people wear or carry symbols of their religion, but there’s absolutely no reason to insist that anyone else do so!
Until/unless it’s perfectly acceptable and not even worth commenting on for someone from another religious group to hand out their religious texts, it is completely unacceptable that the Gideons/Christian groups hand out their religous texts.
They are ordinary Bibles. It is my understanding, based on discussions with Mormon acquaintances, that they have no objection to the King James Bible–it’s just more recent versions that they don’t like. And the Gideons don’t have a problem with supplying King James versions, if what I’ve seen in hotel rooms is any indication.
The vibe I get from my linked story is that the Gideons aren’t forcing them on anybody–they’re offering them, but nobody has to take them. What does seem to be a problem is that the teacher of the child in question was taking things a little too far: having the children saying a blessing before snacktime, for example, and engaging in a little trickery to get the children to accept the Bibles.
I recall the Gideons when I was a student at the University of Alberta. Every Monday, they would set up a table in a busy part of the campus, and display Bibles on them. They never bothered anybody, and never spoke to passerby unless spoken to first; and the Bibles were free for the taking. I find it difficult to believe that an organization that was that non-aggressive in spreading its message, would force Bibles on schoolchildren; which leads me to believe it’s the teacher’s or school’s doing. As I said, it is a very religious community.
Of course, why anybody non-religious, as this mother said her family was, would move to Cardston is beyond me.
Now that I think of it, I do remember the Gideons (or a group similar to them) setting up tables at my universities too. They didn’t push them on people and were rather out-of-the-way and polite. The difference, though is that the “audience” or recipients were adults, who can make their own choices. Children are easily influenced, especially if a teacher - who they tend to trust and want to please - is insistant in any way.
I stand by my opinion that all non-instructional religious texts have no place in schools. Religion should be a personal matter, and should be taught by parents and church leaders, not teachers, and special-interest groups shouldn’t be influencing the students in a school by showing up and spreading their texts around (think about it – a few kids pick up the book, a few kids don’t, they start talking about it in class, deviating from other topics…it might be a small and easily handled deviation and influence, but it’s still there). Heck, not only religious things - I’d object to political pamphlets or handing out of coupons for candy, too! It’s inappropriate and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Heh, giving kids original texts like the Bible is something that I’d have thought both atheists and deeply religious folks would agree was a good idea.
Atheists in particular, because I can’t imagine any greater motivation for atheism than actually reading the OT. I mean, parts of it are in beautiful poetry (even in translation), and parts of it have gripping stories, but much of it is a dry-as-dust legal code of a vansihed Iron Age society, and many of the stories are simply horrible and hardly likely to resonate with kids living in modern day society.
Personally, I think the notion that vulnerable kids are likely to be handed a Bible and, by reading it, become religious, is far-fetched; I know that is what those handing out Bibles want, but I think it extremely unlikely.
Myself, I have always thought that a certain amount of instruction for children in biblical matters (and for that matter the Koran) would be a good idea. For one, because these texts have formed the basis of Western and Middle Eastern society, meaning much of art, literature and culture contains references to them; for another, because monotheistic religion maintains great influence to this day, and learning what motivates the religious is therefore important.
Edit: though I agree with mnemosyne that outsiders should not be in elementary schools handing out stuff, whatever it is.