Booing U.S. kids was disgraceful
Vancouver should be embarrassed by fans' show of spite
Pete McMartin
CanWest News Service
Thursday, January 05, 2006
VANCOUVER - It was near the end of the United States' semi-final game at the World Junior Hockey Championship when a group of foreign relations experts in the stands began chanting:
"U.S. sucks!"
Small detail here:
A Canadian team was not on the ice at the time.
If one were, that would have gone some way toward explaining the Yankee animus oozing out of the stands: File it under home-ice over-exuberance. It would have been forgivable. Barely.
But the Americans were playing the Russians at the time.
And the Canadian crowd wasn't just rooting for the Russians -- amazing enough in itself, considering that bitter history -- it was rooting against the Americans. And the chanters weren't so much interested in a hockey game as scoring points against America, the country, not the team.
(Take away the beer bellies and the baseball caps, and you could have had yourself an anti-WTO demonstration. When the hockey louts start chanting the same slogans as the local Trotskyist cell, you know you have an ugly trend.)
The Canadian crowd's antipathy toward the American team has been a constant.
The Americans have noticed. In their 2-1 quarter-final win over the Czechs, U.S. goalie Cory Schneider said he had to concentrate to block out the boos raining down from the stands.
With admirable restraint, Schneider, commenting about the then-upcoming U.S.-Russia game, said: "I'll be interested to see who they cheer for tomorrow."
For his part, U.S. head coach Walt Kyle was under the mistaken impression -- one still shared by many Americans, the poor, trusting boobs -- that because our two great countries are neighbours, and have co-existed peacefully for over 150 years, and have vast economic and cultural ties, that he could consider Canada a home-ice-away-from-home and Vancouverites would naturally cheer for the American team rather than for a team from a country which, not 20 years ago, was chiefly known for its vicious soul-crushing despotism, and whose hockey teams were reviled by Canadian fans as products of a drab socialist machine that saw sport as nothing more than an arm of state propaganda.
But Kyle hadn't figured on the Canadian weakness for envy; I'll bet he didn't even suspect that that weakness existed, or would find expression in something as well-intentioned as an international hockey tournament.
His charges are, after all, 17-to-19-year-old boys, not architects of the war against Iraq. Likely, the only thoughts they have on softwood lumber is that it makes for lousy hockey sticks.
And imagine the Canadian reaction if an American hockey crowd had chanted "Canada Sucks!" Imagine the country-wide alarm! Imagine the indignant frothing! Imagine the CBC televised forum hosted by Peter Mansbridge on the crisis in U.S.-Canadian relations, featuring the nationalist ravings of Maude Barlow!
Still, Kyle should know, before he leaves never to come back, that there are still Canadians who feel that the anti-American chanters in the stands are not true sportsmen; that they do not typify the Canadian sense of patriotism; that they do not personify our relationship with his country; and that lastly, and most importantly, they are idiots.
Kyle and his team deserve an apology.
Consider this one.
© National Post 2006
Vancouver should be embarrassed by fans' show of spite
Pete McMartin
CanWest News Service
Thursday, January 05, 2006
VANCOUVER - It was near the end of the United States' semi-final game at the World Junior Hockey Championship when a group of foreign relations experts in the stands began chanting:
"U.S. sucks!"
Small detail here:
A Canadian team was not on the ice at the time.
If one were, that would have gone some way toward explaining the Yankee animus oozing out of the stands: File it under home-ice over-exuberance. It would have been forgivable. Barely.
But the Americans were playing the Russians at the time.
And the Canadian crowd wasn't just rooting for the Russians -- amazing enough in itself, considering that bitter history -- it was rooting against the Americans. And the chanters weren't so much interested in a hockey game as scoring points against America, the country, not the team.
(Take away the beer bellies and the baseball caps, and you could have had yourself an anti-WTO demonstration. When the hockey louts start chanting the same slogans as the local Trotskyist cell, you know you have an ugly trend.)
The Canadian crowd's antipathy toward the American team has been a constant.
The Americans have noticed. In their 2-1 quarter-final win over the Czechs, U.S. goalie Cory Schneider said he had to concentrate to block out the boos raining down from the stands.
With admirable restraint, Schneider, commenting about the then-upcoming U.S.-Russia game, said: "I'll be interested to see who they cheer for tomorrow."
For his part, U.S. head coach Walt Kyle was under the mistaken impression -- one still shared by many Americans, the poor, trusting boobs -- that because our two great countries are neighbours, and have co-existed peacefully for over 150 years, and have vast economic and cultural ties, that he could consider Canada a home-ice-away-from-home and Vancouverites would naturally cheer for the American team rather than for a team from a country which, not 20 years ago, was chiefly known for its vicious soul-crushing despotism, and whose hockey teams were reviled by Canadian fans as products of a drab socialist machine that saw sport as nothing more than an arm of state propaganda.
But Kyle hadn't figured on the Canadian weakness for envy; I'll bet he didn't even suspect that that weakness existed, or would find expression in something as well-intentioned as an international hockey tournament.
His charges are, after all, 17-to-19-year-old boys, not architects of the war against Iraq. Likely, the only thoughts they have on softwood lumber is that it makes for lousy hockey sticks.
And imagine the Canadian reaction if an American hockey crowd had chanted "Canada Sucks!" Imagine the country-wide alarm! Imagine the indignant frothing! Imagine the CBC televised forum hosted by Peter Mansbridge on the crisis in U.S.-Canadian relations, featuring the nationalist ravings of Maude Barlow!
Still, Kyle should know, before he leaves never to come back, that there are still Canadians who feel that the anti-American chanters in the stands are not true sportsmen; that they do not typify the Canadian sense of patriotism; that they do not personify our relationship with his country; and that lastly, and most importantly, they are idiots.
Kyle and his team deserve an apology.
Consider this one.
© National Post 2006
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