On Sport

Check out this link, from the Oilers' game on Thursday. Sixteen thousand people singing O Canada together - I wonder when was the last time THAT happened. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ron McLean knew how I was feeling when he said, "That, like all the things we love, never gets old."

But then I reflected on it, for just a moment, from another point of view. Where these people really singing because they are proud Canadians? A number of them, probably. But I would say that most of them are singing because they are Oilers fans, and they think this shows how great of fans they are. Personally, I don't need the Stanley Cup playoffs to inspire me to show respect for my country and its anthem.

Fortunately, I didn't stop thinking about it after that. And I actually came to a conclusion, rather than my too-often fallback position of fence-sitting.

This is far from the worst example of patriotism and pride - it is, rather, one of the best examples of the power of the good in sport.

We had a rough relationship for a while there, sport and I. When I got to university, I almost totally stopped playing team sports. Instead, I had to study it. I had classes in sport physiology. Sport ethics. Sociology of sport. Psychology of sport. Sport Administration. Sport injury, sport rehabilitation, sport history, and a whole schedule of others. I got pretty pissed off with sports in general, and I would try to avoid studying them any more than I had to. I even somehow got away with writing about the potlach for my sport history class; I guess that falls under the "sport and leisure" category. Anyway, having finished my classes and done what I thought was the more honourable thing to do in the field (working with the injured in the general population, rather than spoiled athletes), I found through my horrible disappointment in that field that there may be something good to sports - namely, motivation. While not forgetting this, it was soon overshadowed by the NHL lockout, which, according to my somewhat jaded view at the time, pitted a bunch of whiny millionaires against a bunch of whiny millionaires.

Luckily for me, and for everyone as far as I'm concerned, sport keeps coming back. Though sometimes you can get some of the positive effects of sport without the organization (as I have previously written), I must admit that nothing can compare to sport. Any sport.

What else is there in the world that makes me, alone in my room, jump off my bed screaming, pumping my arms in the air? Because some guy I have never met, putting a little piece of rubber behind another guy, 1000 miles away from me, has caused that reaction. Wearing the same jersey in a sports bar makes you automatic friends. Wanting to maintain the fitness to play will motivate people to eat just about anything, and do a ridiculous amount of preparation hardly rivalled by any other professional.

Yes, Sport can sometimes motivate too much. And sometimes the fans look past the reason for the competition.

And yet, it is still athletes who have to power to unite millions (I have never met as many Oilers fans outside of Edmonton as I have in the past few weeks). Sport provides inspiration for a child. If two people meet, having never met before, and they find that they both love to golf, they might as well have been friends for years by the sudden connection they can make. Sport can make participant and fan alike cry. It can give smiles. It gives broken bones and scrapes and sprains, and the athletes love to talk of these battle scars. Two participants, or two fans, can be going at each other for hours and still have the highest respect for the other. Taking on challenges and defeats in sport prepares those who know them for challenges in all other aspects of life. And the feeling - the feeling of competition; the hard hits; the big throw; the sacrifice for the team; and maybe, if you have worked hard enough and everything falls into place, the victory - it is unbeatable.

We're ok again, sport and I.