War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Defence Is Offence

I've always thought that Canadians' attitude to hockey is sort of like a child's attitude to his favourite toy: He wants other kids to admire it, but God forbid any of them should try playing with it. I mean, we did create a world championship, then name it after ourselves. And we did offer a concession and call it the "World Cup," only to then host it every time.

Speaking of the World Cup of Hockey, did you know the trophy was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry? He grew up in Toronto, and remained a hockey fan despite living much of his life in the US. So he was happy to take on this design challenge. I liked the design, though admittedly, my only criteria was that it be less cheesy than the original World Cup trophy, and less ugly than the soccer World Cup trophy. Check and check. So I was disappointed that most Hockey Guys were nonplussed by the design. It was the usual vague dislike that the hockey world always gives to new things, and it seemed to me to underline the sport's unwillingness to associate with anything intellectual. But having said all that, I've got to point out that the Cup's new logo makes it look like a weird Kleenex dispenser.

So I haven't been too enthusiastic about the World Cup. But then I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the start of the new ad for said Cup, which is built around the question, "who owns hockey?" and features fans from various countries making their case. It seems like a major breakthrough for us to admit that other countries might actually have an emotional connection to the sport.

Unfortunately, it ends by cranking the nationalism to eleven, with a badly CGI'ed scene of Johnathon Toews and Sidney Crosby reassuring a crowd that that we shouldn't be troubled by those nasty foreigners and their love of our game. The whole giant-face-addressing-the-crowd thing has a 1984 vibe to it, which is made worse by the line "Hockey invented Canada." Aside from not really making sense, that's a new level to the Canadian hockey rhetoric.

But the subtler problem with the final scene is that it creates a vision of Canadian hockey fans so enthusiastic that they've gathered in an urban square just to be part of the moment. Trouble is, it was Raptors fans that kind of invented that. That's not to say that other sports fans can't reuse the concept, but when you need to borrow another sport's expression of fandom, it does take away from the message that Canada-is-hockey-is-Canada.