March 30, 2001

10:56 AM

The death of hockey in Canada? Ask a Canadian, and they'll tell you it's the death of Hockey [with a capital H], period. "We may still call it our national game, but like nearly everything else in this country we have sold it to the Americans."

An interesting article about a national pastime flying south, and becoming merely another example of "American show business."
posted by legibility (9 comments total)

[Soo-rry a-boot the double-post; MetaFilter seems to have been down for a few hours.]
posted by legibility at 10:58 AM on March 30, 2001

Blah. Wait until we buy the great white north. We'll make it into Disney Snow Park...

I'm kidding
posted by fooljay at 1:44 PM on March 30, 2001

marty mcsorley will single handedly resurrect the sport.
posted by afx114 at 3:24 PM on March 30, 2001

Hockey in Minnesota is also very big and we lost our team almost ten years ago. To Dallas. What the heck do Texans know about hockey? But like Canada, we had many levels of hockey available to us so it didn't seem like that big of a deal. In my opinion, the NHL is boring and not that good. Especially when you can watch Junior or college hockey.

But it's just hockey and money.
posted by emoeby at 3:31 PM on March 30, 2001

I don't follow hockey much -- why are they called "the Habs"?
posted by dhartung at 4:01 PM on March 30, 2001

"Habitants Canadiens" - french for "Canadian Inhabitants"

Hence, "Habs". See here for the story.
posted by Succa at 5:37 PM on March 30, 2001

The author needs to talk to a Canadian. Seriously. I could write an equally insipid article (okay, I probably couldn't get it published, but I could write it, dammit! :-) about how Americans feel that the extension of popular Canadian bands into America is commercialising the great American tradition of the Rock Star.

The future owners of the Habs have guaranteed that the team will stay in Montreal for x years. Who cares if they're American or Canadian, the point is that the team actually has a freakin' chance in the near future.

Sure, the team was sold for ~$180 million, but Christ, the entire team has a smaller salary than other team's starting lines. Not to mention a serious rash of injuries. Many, if not most, of the current roster should still be in the minor leagues, but the team just gets the shit beat out of them on a regular basis.

Even if the NHL ("National" has _never_ meant Canada) doesn't have a team playing in Canada in 5 years, hockey in Canada won't be dead until the percentage of male canadians who spend 5 months driving around with raunchy equipment bags in their trunks drops somewhere below 30%.

My personal encounters put that number somewhere around 80% right now. I'm not especially worried about the state of the game.
posted by cCranium at 6:59 PM on March 30, 2001

I think Canadians have shown incredibly good sense in not voting public money over to help woo these multimillionaires to their towns. let them go, if that's the state of the sport. and more power to them.

remember, spectator sport is a non sequitur.
posted by Sean Meade at 7:27 PM on March 30, 2001

This pretty much sums up my feelings about Canadians (Proudle 123Hosting-style Stolen from The Onion:

Man From Canada Acts Like He's Not Cold
BOSTON-- While visiting family in Boston, Geoff MacArdle of Ottawa refused to admit that he was cold Monday. "This is nothing--this is like May in Ottawa," insisted MacArdle, wearing a light spring jacket despite 23-degree temperatures. "Where I'm from, we have picnics in this weather." MacArdle then went indoors, saying he had nothing to prove.
posted by SilentSalamander at 11:29 PM on March 30, 2001