I’ve received quite a few comments (not from this blog, but in my day to day life) about how odd it is that I seem to have so much invested in these playoffs. Those of you who know me well – which is definitely most of you – know that I am religiously anti-sports, I not only don’t care, I am normally aggressively indifferent.
Quite a few people have called me out on this, some in very cutting ways. I’ve been called a hypocrite, accused of cheering for something I know nothing about, a traitor to the artistic cause.
It’s true that know nothing about the game. My hockey knowledge is limited strictly to what little I’ve been able to pick up on the fly from the friends that I’ve jumped on the bandwagon with. It’s not about that for me, in fact, what it’s about – what it’s about stretches back a very long way. And I realised this as I was sitting at “Vancouver Pizza” (formally known as Boston Pizza) with my best friend watching the game that would get us to the playoffs, and I’ve not really talked about it since, but I think those people dear to me who are calling me a hypocrite deserve an explanation…
So, for what it’s worth…
I didn’t discover I had a small affinity for basketball until well into high school…before that though…
When you’re the kid who was too slow for track (with one great exception in grade 6), too weak for baseball (“everyone move in, what’s the matter shorty! Can’t ya hit!”), too tiny for hockey (though we didn’t have a hockey team), when you were even picked last for dodgeball…you convince yourself, even if you do it without thinking about it, that you don’t need sports. You don’t need to be on a team, or part of the cheerleaders (who wants to wear a stupid skirt like that anyway?! where’s the “intellectual thrill of spelling out words with your arms” as Buffy would say), you don’t need to play…you can read instead, after all you don’t need friends, when you can slay dragons.
What does all that have to do with this series? More than you’d think. This is the first time in my life I’ve allowed myself to enjoy anything sports-related, the first time I’ve had friends who welcome me into the fold to enjoy it with them, and it doesn’t matter one bit that we know next to nothing about the game, it doesn’t matter that I still don’t agree with how much the players get paid or any of the off-ice politics. None of that matters…what matters is that the little girl who was picked last for dodgeball has a team that picked her.
In the long run? It’s not the team that’s on the ice that matters to me – though don’t get me wrong, I do want the ‘Nucks to win – it’s the team that’s around the table, with a plate of nachos in the middle, it’s the team that’s sending me text updates on the score because they know I can’t watch the game at work, or commiserating with me over the phone while I’m watching at home because I don’t dare brave the bus system…
It’s that team that counts.
And to hell with being picked last for dodgeball.
Sing it, sister! I’m not as “aggressively indifferent” as you but am usually on the indifferent side, and don’t know much about the game (more than you I think?) but I’m definitely on the “We are all Canucks” bandwagon. BC’s the province I’ve lived in the longest so it’s the only place I feel I have any solid connection with. And for a long long time they’ve been the underdogs… Anyway, being down under, but still being able to call myself a Canucks fan, is making me feel more Canadian. I had similar thoughts a few days ago and posted here – http://jzgarnett.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-am-canadian.html My twitter/library student friend said I had “suddenly become hypercanadian” – and I like that.
Anyone would know more about the game than me! I can’t even understand half the terminology! So yes, I definitely think you’re ahead on that front! And you ARE Canadian, you just happen to be slightly displaced at the moment….
As you so cleverly explained, it’s not necessarily the game on the ice, or court, or diamond, etc. It is often the sense of belonging, the sharing of “fun” that makes sports fans what they are. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, but for that particular moment, it does matter – and that’s the fun of it. Local pride or national pride figure into it, too, but ultimately it’s comaraderie and competition – and of course, the nachos.
PS. I was always chosen last, but was secretly hoping not to be chosen at all for most sports. Now, as long as I don’t have to play, I’m a fan.