I thought I knew how a city could get when its home team was fighting its way toward a championship. I lived in Boston during that remarkable 2004 World Series victory that ‘reversed the curse’, etc. There is still a section in the Boston.com web site that may end up immortalizing the event for the next 86 years — which was the length of time between the two World Series trophies — if they have to. For all I know, there are probably folk songs about the Sox of ’04 and hundreds of new baby boys christened ‘Johnny’, ‘Jason’ and ‘Manny’.
But for Canadians, Hockey seems to be more than just a sport. It’s a glue for country, including the new citizens (and landed immigrants), maybe because we all agree that Canada invented the sport, and deserves to be the world champions in it, even if things haven’t always worked out that way.
Add to that, a trophy drought of similar length to the Sox. Vancouver, who have not won the Stanley Cup since the ‘Millionaires’ won it back in 1917–1918, is noticeably hockey crazy, even for Canada. You see the cars everywhere, with the flags all over them. Today at the market I couldn’t help noticing more than a few guys wearing Canucks Jerseys. The CBC is running a photo contest of the craziest Canuck fan (you know, the ones who do the whole face-paint thing). If the team does win the cup, they are estimating a $2.1 million cost in Police protection to keep all of the celebrators from running amuck. Speaking of costs, tickets for tonights game were going for $320 for a pair from scalpers.
Some of my fellow Vancouver bloggers are also podcasters. One of them was highlighted for their increasingly popular podcast, Crazy Canucks. Check out the spot on the local TV station at John’s other blog: John Bollwitt blog or his wife and co-podcaster, Miss604. I think they’ve tapped into a real vein of Hockey Madness.
I write this after the home team lost in overtime. It seems that every time I watch they lose. So I’m not sure I’m going to watch the next again on Saturday, when they are away in Dallas.
As for the sports bar owners. I’m sure that although they do want the Canucks to win as much as everybody else, they’d much rather stretch this initial set of playoff games with the Dallas Flames to the full seven. Nothing crazy about that.
Saw a bus yesterday, its sign alternated between “Broadway” and “Go Cannucks Go”.
There may be a craze in Vancouver now, but I think you misoverestimate the importance of hockey. When there was a strike/lockout and a season with no hockey, it was my experience that it was a relatively small group (of men) who grumbled. Most Canadians, including almost every single immigrant, just went on with their life, with one less (media generated) distraction in their life.
Of course I don’t claim that my social sphere includes a broad cross section of Vancouver-ites, and it includes almost no Canadians from outside the lower BC mainland.
david: please tune into our live video cast at 4:45p.m. for game 6
ustream.tv/canucksoutsider
Jan -
It may be that the craze is media-generated, but when that stick, puck and ice-powered machine is running, you can’t avoid it, for sure.
I have noticed that it is expected that everyone who lives here know something about hockey. That’s not an explicit requirement, but I bet if you said ‘I don’t know a thing about hockey and am not interested’, you’d be given some strange looks in some circles. I’m sure there are lots of equivalent expectations about other subjects/sports in other areas. Maybe its a matter of being able to make polite conversation about something other than the weather. In Boston, I think there were times when ‘How ’bout them Sox?’ was the equivalent of ‘Hi there’.
Maybe the effort it takes to learn a bit about what a power play is, or that the game is played in three periods (with or without overtime), or even the names of some of the star players causes one to invest some of yourself into it. It doesn’t create famdom, or even perhaps, enthusiasm, but it does mean that you can participate somewhat. Pam has really gotten to like the game, and was perhaps less familiar with it than I was when we arrived in Canada.
Roland -
Thanks for the reminder. Now that we know the technology works, it’ll be good to see it in action. I’ll try to tune in (seems like a strange verb for linking to a URL, but then again, we still ‘dial’ the phone even though I haven’t seen a phone with a dial on it for years).
I know the rules, I used to watch ice hockey during winter Olympics when I was a kid, but now it doesn’t interest me at all.
I either call it Hokey or Stick Fighting. That usually sets the expectation level with my conversation partners as to how much/little I’m interested in talking about the sport.