Ice-cold politics: a clash on ice gets ugly

Sports is not our forté here at Collapse Life — but could what happened this past weekend be the harbinger of things to come between the US and Canada?

Baseball is to America as hockey is to Canada. It’s just the natural order of things on the North American continent.

But in 1988, when Canada sent its Puck King — "The Great One" Wayne Gretzky — south of the border, it was more than just a trade; it was a cultural shift. Gretzky’s positive reception and the enduring success of hockey in America over the decades have meant Canada has had to share its dominance. The impact is visible: teams now thrive in places where ice’s main job is to chill a cocktail. And surprisingly, many of these teams have fared quite well.

Overall, this is not a lamentable shift. In fact, it’s part of what makes the North American hockey scene so compelling. The rivalry between two countries whose history and sporting cultures are intimately intertwined creates an exciting dynamic. Players trade sides, teams travel across borders, and regardless of the final score, it's the sport itself that emerges victorious. Whether in Canada or the America, hockey remains a game for all to love.

But this past weekend, an unfortunate stench settled over the sport — one that took the messiness of national politics in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa and transformed it into something more akin to WWE on ice. During the Four Nations Face-Off, a tournament where Canada and the US met head-to-head, Canadian hockey fans turned the event into a spectacle of poor showmanship: they booed the American national anthem.

The ruckus undermines the very spirit of international competition. Yes, Canadians of all political leanings are clearly upset with the current US President, whose gaze towards the North has often been one of disdain. But to bring that frustration into the arena — into a space where sports should be a unifying force — is a shame to say the least. Things at the Montreal Forum, where the game was played, only went downhill from there. The first nine seconds of the game looked like this:

Everyone loves a good fight in hockey — for longtime fans, swinging fists harken back to the good old days of the 70s and 80s. In fact, that era is almost perfectly captured in the 1977 film, Slap Shot, starring Paul Newman.

The goons of the “Iron League” — the Hanson Brothers — revived the fortunes of the flagging Charlestown Chiefs, in Slap Shot. Give the fans what they want, right?

Despite the hubris of boos and the flying fists of rage, Canada ultimately lost the match. But that's not where the story ends. As fortune would have it, these two fierce rivals are set to meet again on the ice. The tournament final pits the US against Canada once more — this Thursday.

What’s becoming increasingly apparent is the rawness of the emotions between what were once close neighbors. To quote from

John Carter

’s excellent ‘Maple Maidan’ article on his

Postcards From Barsoom

Substack:

Canada and the US have been frenemies for most of the last two hundred years. With the exception of some spats in the 19^th century, they’ve fought on the same side in all major wars, and haven’t taken up arms against one another. At the same time, Canada has from the very beginning fiercely guarded its independence…

…the US could always rely on Canada being a stable, competently run, prosperous, and happy neighbour – perhaps a bit on the prickly side, given the inferiority complex, but much less of a headache than the entropic narcostate to the south that keeps sending its masses of illiterate campesinos flooding over the banks of the Rio Grande. Canada might be annoying sometimes, but it didn’t cause problems. To the contrary, Canada and the US have maintained one the world’s most productive trading relationships for years: America gets Canadian oil, minerals, lumber, and Canada gets US dollars, technology, and culture.

Now, however, Canada has become a problem for America.

Let’s face it: the "Great White North" is no longer great, no longer white, and its northern qualities now seem like a handicap in the race to militarize the Arctic, where rivals are orders of magnitude stronger. This is the reality the US faces, with friendly Canadians caught in the middle. The world has changed, and the stability of the post-Second World War order has rapidly eroded. For Canada, it may have passed with the death of Queen Elizabeth II — the last tether to a Canada that is now long gone.

This, then, is the uncomfortable truth playing out on the ice. It’s a metaphor that, on the surface, might seem puerile. But then again, so is booing a national anthem.

Canada’s Foreign Minister, Mélanie Joly, recently told PBS that: “We will continue to be the best friends and best neighbors that America will ever have. But we will never be a state, and we will never be a colony. Period.”

That may be the Trudeau administration’s official line — the irony of which is not lost on those who care to remember Canada was once a British colony. The chaotic scenes on the ice — between players brawling and fans jeering — tell a different story however. Is this how best friends and neighbors treat each other?

If this rivalry continues to escalate off the ice, those so-called “best neighbors” might find themselves in a far more complicated relationship than they realize. Here’s to hoping for a cleaner game and a successful end to the tournament later this week — one where, win or lose, we might still remember what it means to be good neighbors.

---