DAN BROWN:
I feel nothing for hockey
CBC News Viewpoint | May 20, 2004 | More from Dan Brown
What are you reading these days? I'm reading Stephen Cole's The Last Hurrah, which is a compelling account of the 1966-67 NHL season, the final one before the league expanded to 12 teams from the original six. It's a colourful, entertaining read.
Cole is a master storyteller and I recommend the book (full disclosure: we used to work together as arts writers at the National Post). If the conventional wisdom is correct and hockey is indeed an integral part of this country's culture, then no one has done a better job of chronicling our national obsession.
I should also, in the interests of full disclosure, point out that I'm not a hockey fan. The cold, ugly truth is that I'd rather read about hockey than actually watch a game. In fact, it's not an exaggeration to say that I feel nothing for hockey. I couldn't care less who wins the Stanley Cup; more to the point, I have no idea who won the cup last year.
Now, before you send me an angry e-mail branding me a traitor to Canada, give me a chance to explain myself.
It's not that I've never been a hockey fan. When I was a kid growing up in the '70s my family spent two years in Montreal, and you would have been hard-pressed to find a more avid supporter of the home side. Because Pete Mahovlich lived a few doors down from us, our neighbourhood had a special aura. Needless to say, I could point out the house, a few suburbs over, where Bunny Larocque hung his skates, and that autograph I got from Mario Tremblay when I bumped into him in a Harvey's restaurant? I still have it.
Imagine the culture shock when we moved to small-town Ontario, where everything was Darryl Sittler this and Mike Palmateer that. Still, I clung to my former favourites; I even kept collecting Canadiens hockey cards – I traded away a pristine Borje Salming rookie card, I think I may have got a dog-eared Doug Riseborough in return.
Yes, I have no problem waxing rhapsodic about the hockey of my childhood. And I think that's very telling. Cole's book is the same way – he spends the entire volume raving about what hockey was like back then, without spending a word on the players of today. By omission, he damns the modern era. I believe it was Ken Dryden in The Game who observed that the golden age of anything is the age of one's childhood, and whether you're talking about the Leafs of 1967 or the Habs of 1977, the glory days have passed.
Maybe losing touch with hockey is just a natural part of growing up. Maybe it happens to all of us. I don't think that's the whole story, though – at least it isn't for me. I guess the larger truth is that somewhere along the line I went from thinking of hockey as a necessary component of our culture to seeing what it really was all along: a business.
This is why I can't get sentimental about the hockey of today. To me, having strong feelings for the Habs or the Leafs is like having strong feelings for CIBC or Petro-Canada or Rogers Cable or any other corporation. Because that's what hockey clubs are: corporations that exist to make money.
And like all other corporations, most of the time they take their customers for granted. If the people who run hockey – and I mean players and management alike – really cared about the fans, there wouldn't be all this talk about a labour dispute possibly causing an abridged season next winter, or no season at all. If they really cared about the fans, they'd lower the ticket prices once in a while. If they really cared about the fans, they wouldn't demand such huge salaries since it's the fans who ultimately pay them.
Instead, what fans get are teams that care more about the bottom line than tradition. Every time I turn on a game, I have a hard time telling which teams are playing because even simple things like the uniforms don't stay the same from season to season. And every time the Hubble telescope discovers another galaxy, I think "Oh no, not another excuse for more expansion teams." From what I hear, even Atlanta has a squad these days – which seems strange to me, because I could have sworn they had one when I was a kid.
And don't even get me started on the violence. Hockey can be such a graceful, beautiful sport, but the powers-that-be refuse to clean it up. What has to happen before there's a change? Does someone have to actually be killed on the ice?
So if the league contracts, or goes out of business entirely, it won't matter to me. Hockey doesn't have a right to be part of our culture, and if another sport replaces it as the national pastime I won't be upset. Canada without hockey might seem like a nightmare, but I'm sure this country will survive.
There, I've had my say. Now bring on the angry e-mails. But keep one thing in mind as you compose them: you can't make me feel a connection to something for which I have no feelings. You can't force me to love professional hockey. Heck, the last game I watched from start to finish was the 2002 gold-medal contest between the U.S. and Canada. Olympic hockey – now that's a different story.
LETTERS:
I think Dan's entire article is invalid for one reason, and one reason only:
he makes the assumption that "Hockey in Canada" is only the NHL. He writes
off an entire sport simply because it's most prominent league is currently
experiencing difficulty. Even if the NHL were to fade into obscurity, there
are dozens of other leagues and hundreds of other teams to cheer for.
I would suggest Dan Brown go to any of the hundreds or thousands of rinks
across this country, where every night countless games or practices take
place with people from 5 to 75 participating, and tell them that their game
is dead. I am sure that just watching some tom-thumb kid desperately chase
down a loose puck at a solid 2 km/h, stumbling all the way, would convince
him otherwise.
Marcel Petrin
I cant believe you wrote this article. Let alone put it on the front page of the hockey sports section.
This is a disgrace to all canadian hockey lovers. You are telling us we are loving business, that the game is unrealistic because players are playing for money, not for the love of the game, or the thought of winning.
The reason you cant relate to this game is because you don't play it. People who play hockey as their past time, love the game, enjoy it for what it is understand the game. If you weren't brought up playing hockey when you were young, you have no respect for the level of play these players play at. Hockey is one of the few sports where it players actually have grit, heart and determination to be on top.
I cant believe a canadian journalist would put out an article like this, your views are very narrow minded and you should really consider your target audience before releasing this to the public.
Neil Fenton
I was surprised to find that I agreed almost totally with Dan Brown. I
have said that watching the NHL is like watching money on the hoof. For me it became obvious when Wayne
Gretzky was traded - money was more important than the fans, far more.
My own cultural divide is that, in an era when rock rules, I cannot
understand it, it is a foreign and ugly language. Sure, there is
popular music which I like, but commercial rock music is just, like NHL
hockey, money on the hoof.
Michael Holmes | Dundas, Ontario
Of course there is nothing wrong or "Un-Canadian"
about not liking hockey.
Liking a sport is clearly a personal choice.
However, not liking Hockey because of the fact that it
is a business is something akin to not liking food
because it is produced by businesses.
Hockey is simply a part of my life, I hate the fact
that the NHL has digressed to the point of
corporations who only care about the bottom line, but
it would be no easier for me to swear off Hockey than
it would for me to swear off food.
Here's to hoping you throw on some skates and play a
game of shinny this winter. You'll soon forget about
the cynicism of the professional game.
Alexander Robertson
I, too, have almost no feelings for hockey. I grew up in Scarborough, and remember the big names: Armstrong, Keon, Mahovolich (Frank) and Johnny Bower. But when the league started expanding, I lost interest. I think Harold Ballard helped me realize the business side of hockey was the real game. (Lots of profit, even without winning.) It was about that time I even stopped playing street hockey.
I drifted without sports for years, then at age 40, found golf. First playing, then watching. And three years ago, I found curling. (First, watching my son, then I played. And now watching it on the television.) My sports life is now complete.
True, professional golfers are often millionaires, as are hockey players. But I can connect to their travails, and in the end, they're not rewarded for poor play. And while professional curlers are probably better compensated than I am, they aren't the prima donnas that the major sports seem to foster.
Thanks for your article. I enjoyed reading it.
Doug
^TOP
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DAN BROWN
ARTS EDITOR
Dan Brown is the site's senior arts editor/reporter. Before joining us
he was a lineup editor and senior writer for Newsworld International.
Dan helped to launch the National Post's Arts & Life section, where he
was a columnist and reporter. A former editorial writer, copy editor and
journalism instructor, Dan has degrees from three universities.
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