It's New Year's Day in Canada! The 2011-12 NHL season starts tonight and seven (SEVEN!) Canadian cities have very little else on their mind other than whether their local side can raise that oversized silver mug pictued above.
Although this is a soccer site, one cannnot avoid the constant influnce of hockey (that's ice hockey for our European friends reading) over, well, everything. Even those that hate the sport and constantly rally against it can't escape it. Actually, the only thing more Canadian than loving hockey is hating it. It's, for better or worse, part of our cultural make up.
However, this is a soccer site, so don't think we've sold-out to the cult of puck in an effort to push those pageviews up. This is not a NHL preview (although if you're asking - Caps over Blackhawks, three Canadian teams make the playoffs -- The Canucks, Jets and the Leafs -- yes, the Leafs*, Shut up). What this is, is an examination of what we as soccer fans should do about the 1,000,000 lbs gorilla in the room.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Many soccer fans seem to feel that the only way to build our sport up is to push hockey down. There is only so much room for sports in the minds of Canadians, the thinking goes, so when hockey takes up 99 per cent of that space there isn't a lot of room for the rest of the sports.
Hockey obsession takes media attention away from soccer, it influences the decision of young athletes to quit soccer to chase hockey dreams and corporate sponsorships are gobbled up by the sport of ice and pucks at the expense soccer.
You can understand where the bitterness can come from.
There is another way to look at it though. Canada's obsession and, more importantly, success at hockey can teach soccer a lot. Hockey is a team sport that rewards organization, but also is dependent on moments of individual brilliance and creativity (sound familiar?). If this country can develop athletes that excel at that sport, it can also develop athletes that excel at soccer. So, enough with the we-can't-do-it mentality.
There are also elements of how hockey is organized in this country that soccer could look at as it tries to modernize its development pathways. Hockey Canada is a beacon of professionalism within the otherwise amateur world of Canadian sport organizations.
However, the biggest lesson that hockey can teach soccer is the former’s unwillingness to accept second best. In a country that often aspires for the middle, celebrates mediocrity and mistrusts success, hockey stands alone in its second-place-is-first-loser mentality. And that’s something that should be celebrated.
This is not to say that there aren’t things about the single-mindedness of puckheads that aren’t problematic. Hockey culture tends to be a bit insular and that narrow-mindedness can, in my opinion, hold us back as a nation. Hockey obsession could be viewed as being more than a bit provincial. It’s great that we are better than any other country in the world at hockey, but the world is a big place and hockey is a small part of it – even from a sporting perspective. That’s why those of us that support games with more global appeal can sometimes get frustrated by all hockey, all the time.
To me, hockey represents the Canada of 1956 – it’s part of our heritage and for many of us it’s something we have grown up with and has always been a major part of our life. It’s also something that will always play a role in our life and we are proud of its heritage.
Soccer, on the other hand, represents Canada of 2011 – multicultural and worldly – hopefully aspiring for something greater than being the best at a sport that only five other nations play seriously.
We should never forget or reject our heritage – actually, we should celebrate it – but we should also always strive to be more. Loving hockey is great, but loving hockey at the expense of everything else is not healthy.
(photo - Ontario Archives)
* It's our year. I can feel it**
**Don't quote me on that