Hockey in Canada

I absolutely love this video from Michael J Fox. The outdoor rink is a common playground for Canadian kids, although I never got to play on one that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean, I did play on many. The video’s called “Its our Game” and shows much of how we feel about hockey, and how it’s part of our heritage here in Canada- but more than that, I love that it’s Michael J Fox in the video. A strong and courageous man, he lives with Parkinsons disease, and inspires me to be strong, and fight for my own health and happiness every day.

Tomorrow is the gold medal match between Canada and the USA, and I know I’ll be glued to the tv watching it when I should be writing. I admit I’m not a super huge hockey fan, but I do watch it occasionally, and I definitely want to cheer on Team Canada. I love going to the Oilers games here in town, and enjoy watching them with groups of friends, but for me it’s more about the energy of things than the actual hockey. It’s so much fun to get caught up in the energy and cheering and all that sort of thing.
I was reading a blog post somewhere about the Olympic Hockey games after the Canada and Russia game and the comments were mostly Americans and Canadians talking about wanting to see the two teams int eh gold medal round for a re-match. One comment really stuck with me though, because it came across as really nasty. Some guy went on about how it was stupid how much Canadians got into it, and that we sucked and the US was better in everything else so why not just let the canadians win as it’s all we have. The thing that struck me in reading the replies to that comment were that they were all from other Americans, all telling the guy to shut up and that he was an idiot and if he didn’t care about it why was he there…and so on. Not one Canadian went on to bad mouth the guy or defend our attitude about hockey. I loved that no Canadian went on and dignified his comment as much as I loved the American ones who went on there and told the guy to fuck off. 🙂
Last night I worked in the bar when Canada and Slovakia played the last elimination game. When Canada won and it became clear it was USA and Canada for the gold again, it sparked a conversation.
I love that it’s Canada and the USA, not just because there’s always a sort of rivalry there, but also because we’re the same continent. It make it clear that the best players are from North America. Then there were a couple of others that hated that it was Canada vs the USA because they’d rather lose to anyone other than the USA. There was no in between in this conversation. Everyone felt one way or the other, and I wondered…Are you Canadian or American? and how do you feel about Canada vs USA in the Gold Medal round?