Chapter 5: It’s On Their Five Dollar Bill

This Sunday, the 27^th, was the opening home game for the Montreal Juniors at the Verdun Auditorium. And to help us become more culturally immersed, Champlain bought us all tickets to the game. The hockey game, that is.

In America, football and baseball are pretty much the two big sports, depending on the time of year. In Canada, it’s hockey. Hockey is like football and baseball rolled into one; they sing the national anthem in the beginning like in baseball, but then the players beat each other up like in football. There’s an image of kids playing hockey on the Canadian 5$ bill for crying out loud. Although, as we learned in our Canadian Culture Through the Fine Arts class, the official national sport of Canada is actually the precursor to hockey, lacrosse. I betcha didn’t know that, did ya?

So, a whole bunch of us, if not all of us, went to the game on Sunday and I think it’s fair to say we all had a good time. I sat with some of my friends in one section, and others were assigned to a different section. Our teacher was in that other section and my friend Michaela said that during the game he explained about the history of the team, the players, and even what was going on in the game. The announcements were in French and English, but it was so loud in the auditorium that they could have all been in Greek. It really was loud in there, too. They passed out these inflatable noisemakers, music played whenever the game clock wasn’t running, and everyone was shouting or laughing or, when a fight broke out, hooting. Between periods (three periods in hockey) they entertained the audience with a brief game of what I called ‘Tiny Hockey’ where young players probably about eight years old came out onto the rink in over-sized jerseys and played a short game of their own. Very cute.

There were only two fights at our game since, as I was told, the college-level hockey community is trying to cut back on the amount of on-rink violence. The crowds love it, but it’s a matter of player safety. At our game, I almost couldn’t help but wonder if the fights weren’t somehow planned to liven things up.

The game had all the things one expects from a modern sports event. Young women with over-priced beer for sale, excited employees throwing rolled-up tee-shirts to equally excited spectators, blasts of catchy popular music and game music, a video projection on one wall, 1$ hotdogs, burgers, and poutine (fries in gravy with cheese – so good), and a big fuzzy mascot of a raccoon bouncing around the stands and posing for photos with little kids. I can’t help but wonder- did we learn this from them or did they learn it from us? I always thought sports events like this were an American tradition, but did it simultaneously develop in Canada? Or did they just learn it from us recently?

It was sort of an overcast day, but you’d never know it in the auditorium. The Montreal Juniors lost 3 – 1 to the visiting team, so the local fans were disappointed, but we Champlainers were just cheering for whoever had the puck.