Puck Hockey

I grew up in the Sault, home of the Sault Greyhounds, a minor league team for which Wayne Gretzky once played. I never went to a game, although I did go to Memorial Gardens once with a friend who had a crush on a player. He had a bit of a Bobby Clarke thing going on I guess, but hockey players were not in my league in those days.

My crushes tended to be grander. Like Bob Dylan grander.

A few, or maybe several, years later I was at the Sault airport for a flight back to Toronto after a Christmas visit home. Phil Esposito, high scoring forward, was there in a full length fur coat catching a flight to somewhere in the US where he lived. Entirely unselfconsciously, too, swanning about the Sault airport like it was a fashion runway. Eyes were rolling in the aisles, but contrary me almost wondered if maybe I should check the local snark a bit and ask him mid-strut for an autograph.

It must stick in his craw that brother Tony, a goalie, ffs, is the hometown favourite.

I don't recall my mother being a big hockey fan but every Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada was on. I hated it. Even if Gram went to watch it in her room, and unless my mother went out, Hockey Night in Canada it was every godddamned Saturday night until finally my mother ceded a bit of territory over the tv.

Also, cable.

But when the Canada-Russia hockey series happened in 1972 competitive patriotic Canadian me was all in. It had nothing to do with hockey. It was all about winning. We had to be the best at SOMETHING. And even though I was in love with Tretiak, the Russian goalie, we still had to win.

And thank Gord we did or whatever would have become of us? Whatever would have become of me?

Paul Henderson could have turned out to be a cannibal and been excused by Canadians for it.

Madness. It's always been madness. We have to win at hockey or... what? What would've happened if we'd lost to the Russians? How different would our country be? Worse? Or, Gord forbid, better.

But we didn't and I went back to hating hockey again.

When I lived in Toronto, which I did from 1977-1991, I watched Hockey Night in Canada because my recently deceased former husband did. I recall being into it a bit because it was the Leafs, and I had crushes on a couple of the players.

I guess my standards had dropped.

Also beer, friends, so it was a party, not just watching hockey.

Prior to this I had a boyfriend who was a huge hockey fan, although we didn't live together, and I don't recall watching much hockey with him. What I did was parrot back stuff he said about different players, Ricky Vaive was a suck, Mike Palmeteer underrated, impressing him mightily with my deep knowledge of the game.

Are all men so easy to fool? Or just hockey fans...

Later, living in Ottawa, it was all about the Senators. The kids and their dad, who was well into fantasy sports leagues by then, would watch the games. One year the city had an outdoor showing at city hall of the Senators in a playoff game. It was a big deal and my son, who was a pre-teen at the time, went off to watch it. All I did was worry they'd lose and I'd have to deal with the fallout. Also pubs on Elgin Street downtown took to calling it "Senators' Mile" like their businesses depended on them making the playoffs and then lasting right through to a Stanley Cup win.

The pressure to win has only ever gotten worse.

But it was this latest Olympic round when it finally twigged, it's not about hockey, not for me, not for Canadians as a whole, it's about having to be the best at hockey, winning, all the stakes in for gold.

A few Olympics ago my ex told a story about going to lunch with his colleagues after a gold medal win against the Americans, and how every day for a few weeks afterward, someone would pipe up, "Let's talk about how we beat the Americans again."

I thought it was hilarious, too, but when we lost last week to the American team the first thing I said to my oldest (having not watched the game myself), "Well at least your Dad isn't alive to witness this tragedy."

She agreed, having a hard enough time herself, this young woman of impeccable progressive credentials but also a hard case of Olympic fever.

The loss got me to thinking about how I can't stand to watch these do or die hockey games and never could. And while I was blaming other people for being so wrapped up in their team winning I couldn't bear to live with their disappointment, it's me, too. At least other people enjoy watching the actual sport. I just need us to win.

I'm embarrassed to admit, this came to me as quite the revelation. Of course I hate hockey. I have no appreciation for the skills involved, the actual sport, how it's played. For me it's just hockey, hockey, hockey, shoved down my throat via our public airwaves from fall through to summer now, a national bully, win internationally or bust.

Oh and never mind the racism, the misogyny, the sexual assaults, players both victims and perpetrators, the homophobia, the gambling, the brain damage.

The Conservatism.

Because those are nothing to do with hockey, the game, those are all about the people who play, watch, coach, commentate, own, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

Anyway, at first I was "argh!" about losing to the Americans, especially after the spectacle of Trump's FBI plant partying with them in their dressing room, followed by Trump himself calling in to capitalize on their win and show off his misogyny at the same time, a twofer, while the dumb dupes guffawed along with it all, no idea he'd just taken them from heroes to zeroes.

From what I've read, too, the Canadian team outplayed the American one, skills-wise, so I imagine there's consolation in that for Canadians who actually appreciate hockey as a sport. I like it, too, though, because it puts into perspective all those wins when the Canadian team wasn't actually the most skilled one on the ice, maybe even including the Russians back in the day, when we had to win because it's not hockey we're so identified with, it's winning at hockey.

And I'm not sure the "Americans may have won the gold in hockey but we still have democracy" is the flex some think it is, either, because it's sure as hell no thanks to the aforementioned people of hockey in Canada that we do.

So yeah, turning that frown upside down, I'm glad we lost, and to the Americans. You should be, too. Hockey's a bully. It needed a good checking. So did we for tying our national identity to winning at it.