By Paul Albers
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Michael Crichton was the first to compare the environmental movement to a religion. The similarities are now widely recognized, even embraced by some environmentalists. In February, Al Gore was greeted in Toronto by throngs of pilgrims who openly declared environmentalism their religion and hoisted banners saying 'Heed the Goracle'.
Living in a city now gripped by Stanley Cup fever, I can't help but wonder if the NHL also counts as a religion. Crichton pointed to environmentalist beliefs in a lost paradise (the pre-industrial era), a judgment day (the ever shifting deadline to save the world), salvation (a sustainable society)and a climate apocalypse as religious concepts remapped to this new faith.
The same can easily be done with hockey. There are saints such as WayneGretzky, Bobby Orr, and Eddie Shack, a priesthood led by Don Cherry, and prophets by the score. Loyal fans make their pilgrimages to hockey 'stemples and cathedrals like the Air Canada Center or Scotiabank Place to watch and participate in ritual chants and hymns. Paradise is the golden age of hockey, when Maple Leaf Gardens was new, before strikes and expansion teams. A judgment day comes at the end of the regular season every year, and salvation is to win hockey's Holy Grail, Lord Stanley's Cup.
It isn't hard to find examples of hockey being elevated to a religion, almost to the point of sacrilege. At the Warmland Community Church in Crofton, Pastor Scott Carruthers began a seven-service series of hockey themed sermons in April, complete with 'Coach's Corner' videos with thePastor filling in for Don Cherry. To help set the mood, the chapel was made to look like a hockey rink and parishioners dressed in their favourite team's colours or as a referee. On the Internet, a re-wording of the Lord'sPrayer is making the rounds ("Our God who art in Scotiabank Place, Senators be thy name.")
Rush Limbaugh recently said that sports are "the one thing in life in which you can invest total passion without consequence", and it's easy to see the attraction of hockey as a religion. There are no formal commandments, no duties or obligations to fulfill. You don't want to fall asleep in the middle of a service and you aren't supposed to be quiet. Although the season ends in doom for all but the one true hockey team, everything starts over a few months later. There seems to be no real lasting harm from failure, nothing really vital is truly put at risk except perhaps for the players themselves.
But there are consequences to any kind of religious fanaticism, even if hockey is that religion. It has become all too common for sports victories to lead to riots of drunken fans destroying property, but longer term harm could result if idle worship distracts us from things that truly matter.
Currently there is a contest going on that deserves far more of our attention than we tend to give it. If we win, the world becomes a safer place for free nations. If we fail there, violence will come to our doorsteps sooner or later, and I'm not taking about the kind that will end in a three-minute penalty or temporary suspension.
A recent Leger Marketing survey showed that a full 70% of Ottawa residents say that we should bring our troops home from Afghanistan either right now, or by some pre-set deadline. Many of these same people could easily evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Ottawa Senators, spout out statistics about the team's performance and make reasoned predictions of their chances for winning the Stanley Cup. Few of them could recite the actual score in the contest between our troops and al-Qaeda, comment accurately on the effectiveness of our soldiers in combat, evaluate fairlythe progress of rebuilding projects or even name any major players.
Much of that is directly a result of the mainstream media's unbalanced reporting. We are treated to endless coverage of every penalty, injury, misstep and setback by our team in Afghanistan, as if those are the only things that happen there. If a play-by-play hockey commentator avoided mentioning the success of one team, the failures of the other team and only gave half the score, they would soon be looking for a new job.
Hockey is great, but in the end it just a game, a form of entertainment that we can enjoy when we take a break from pursing meaningful accomplishments.The conflict in Afghanistan is about winning something far more important than a cup. It is about the preservation of our freedom and civilization.Granted that isn't something you can hoist over your head and skate around the rink with, but it should hold more value for us than a trophy and itdeserves more attention than a game
.Paul Albers is a freelance columnist living in Ottawa. He can be reached at: p.e.albers@gmail.com
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