I found out yesterday that about a minute into the Canada-USA 4 Nations Hockey game last Saturday night Alana texted her father and said “did mom leave the room yet?” To which he replied, “yup. She was gone after 3 seconds.” She knows me well. For those that don’t know, there were 3 fights in the first 9 seconds of the game.
I’m not against hockey. I will watch Olympic, Womens’ and International hockey. But as soon as a fight breaks out, I’m gone. Our sons both played hockey for many years … although eventually Pat tactfully suggested that perhaps it would be better if I didn’t attend the games because the abusive comments from parents in the stands towards the players (who were kids) upset me too much. I took him up on that invitation.
When Alana came along, I will admit to steering her into different activities, including competitive swimming, which she enjoyed for many years until the time commitment just got too much between the early morning practices and one weekend a month away at a competition.
Her brothers’ and father’s love of hockey rubbed off on her. During her high school graduation year, we took a trip to Washington DC during March break to visit friends, and took a side trip to Pittsburgh to watch Sidney Crosby play. She was his number one fan. She might even still be.
On our student trip to Northern Ireland in February of 2014, it was in the middle of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. At Corrymeela, we managed to hook the TV up to a computer with wifi so we could watch the Canadians play. Later in the week we even commandeered a corner of a popular sports bar in Belfast to watch the final gold game. Granted, we had to agree to turn the sound off once the football started in the rest of the bar.
Some members of the group, including myself, even went to see the Belfast Giants play at the newly built Odyssey Arena (now the SSE Arena) on our day off. (pictures above and below). This came about after we watched the NFB Film When Hockey Came to Belfast. Of course, Alana organized the expedition.
This is a description of the film: “Paul and Andrew are friends that met through their shared love of ice hockey. Like other 15-year-olds, they hang out, listen to music and play sports. However, Belfast is a city steeped in decades of religious violence. Paul is Catholic and Andrew is Protestant, and being friends means risking their safety in a divided city.
When Hockey Came to Belfast is the striking story of how Canadian ice hockey is transcending religious lines. Bringing Northern Irish youth together in a shared love of the game, the rink gives boys and girls a haven from the turf warfare that pervades their lives. "When you're on the ice, you don't really think about Protestants and Catholics," says Andrew. "You just get on to play the sport with whoever's there."
Set against the backdrop of a post-conflict society, this documentary also provides an intimate glimpse into the realities of life in Belfast - the 12-metre-high walls that divide Catholic and Protestant, the precautions Andrew and Paul must take to be friends and the safety they find on the rink at Dundonald.”[1] You can watch the film here
The taxi drivers in Belfast got quite a kick out of listening to us going on about “ice hockey” … and some were quite amazed to know that it was a growing sport in Northern Ireland. We learned that bringing ice hockey to NI was quite intentional. Long held divisions between Protestant and Catholic extended to which sports team you supported. By introducing a new sport to young kids, it was hoped that the cycle of division and sectarianism over many decades might be broken. I was amazed at the packed arena – mostly filled with kids under 10. It was an excited and animated crowd that was there to cheer for their Elite League champions. Ten years later, I see that the Belfast Giants are still going strong, and have won many championships.
Cathal Kelly, in his Globe and Mail review of last night’s game, said … “A lot of what happened at TD Garden wasn’t hockey. It was politics, and the von Clausewitz sense – war by other means. … Except the Boston crowd wasn’t all that interested in punching back. The booing of O Canada? Cursory. Perfunctory, even. … The audience let the Canadians on hand – and there were many of them – take up the song in the second half. … Boston is a lot of things. It’s a hockey town, a ‘U-S-A-U-S-A’ town, but it’s not a Trump town. In their low-key, charming way, they seemed to be protesting too.”
One of the exercises we used to do at Corrymeela to introduce the idea of sectarianism and to get conversations going is to explore what tends to unite and divide people. We did this by putting ourselves in a line according to our thoughts about questions such as …
Does a flag unite or divide us? Does a song unite or divide us? Does a sports team unite or divide us?
Of course, there would be folks all along the line according to their thoughts about whether it unites or divides us.
I have heard the argument about booing during the National Anthem at sports events argued persuasively from both perspectives – both defending it and condemning it. I’m probably somewhere in the middle.
I am pleased to report that I lasted the whole first period last night before I toddled off to bed and my Chief Bruno mystery. And yes, I was happy to see that from all reports it was a thrilling game, Canada won, and the long standing good relationship between Nova Scotia and Boston still stands.
Take that, Mr. President.
