After a busy past few months in sports, the busiest point of the year, with the Olympics, NHL & NBA playoffs, French Open, Wimbledon and most importantly the World Cup all coming to an end, it’s safe to say it has been fun being a sports fan.
But what exactly do all these events mean to us, as people, as a culture or as a population. As we watched in awe of our local teams compete in the playoffs in hockey or basketball, our hometown heroes battle their way through tennis history or our national soccer clubs try to reach the pinnacle of football glory, something special and invisible was felt inside every one of us sports fans, it’s called pride.
Sports Define Us, Unite Nations, Carry Us Out of Tragedy
We were proud that the L.A. Kings won the Stanley Cup or we were proud that the New York Rangers got so far with so little expectation. We were proud that the San Antonio Spurs won the NBA Championship or we were proud that the Toronto Raptors captured basketball passion across a hockey-mad country. Milos Raonic and Genie Bouchard made us proud to be Canadian while the U.S. men’s national soccer team made us proud to be American.
As a Montrealer, I had the lucky opportunity to witness first hand how a city like Montreal, hockey’s epicenter of passion, reacts to a long and exciting playoff run the Montreal Canadiens had this past spring. Quebec had just come out of a politically, socially and culturally dividing election on April 7, when the Canadiens started their 17-game run against the Tampa Bay Lightning on April 16. Prior to the election, the province was torn in two, anglophones vs francophones. Talks of a third referendum to separate from Canada were on the rise while the economy was on the demise.
Then, Dale Weise scored in OT of game 1 in Tampa Bay, and suddenly, just like that, Quebecers had something to cheer about once again. Through 16 more grueling, heart stopping, nerve-wracking games, seven of which were against the Boston Bruins, one of the greatest rivalries in sports, the people of Quebec had something to be proud for, one common sports team for all 8 million people, with political tension put aside.
We, as the world, saw 200 million Brazilians collapse in tears during their 7-1 beating by the Germans in the World Cup semi-finals. In a country filled with turmoil over the corrupt government and poverty visible everywhere, they got behind their team, their 11 men for 90 minutes and cheered their hearts out. Watching the players sing the anthem and cry, grown men crying in front of a global TV audience, was a true testament to just how important soccer is to Brazil, to how a population becomes one for a sporting event.
Boston Strong is an example of how sports can lift us out of tragedy, a city came together as people and as sports teams following the tragic Boston Marathon Bombings on April 15, 2013. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series, the Bruins played in the Stanley Cup Final and the Patriots made it to the AFC Championship game. The teams exemplified what it meant to be a Bostonian, to come out of the ashes no matter what situation and always attain for the best possible, now that is something to be proud of.
“Crosby scores! Sidney Crosby the Golden Goal and Canada has once-in-a-lifetime Olympic Gold!” Those words jolted out by Chris Cuthbert on February 28, 2010 were heard across the nation of Canada followed by simultaneous excited jumping and yelling by 33 million people (I was so excited myself I almost jumped from the couch onto a glass coffee table). It was the goal of a generation and arguably one of the best goals in Canadian sports history, right up there with Paul Henderson in 1972. Everyone, especially myself, felt really proud to be a Canadian after the goal that will be forever etched in history.
I asked some fellow LWOS writers what their best memories are of celebrating sports victories with their country or city and here is what some of them had to say:
Chris Spisak: All of Houston went completely crazy in ’94 when the Rockets beat the Knicks. Our first major sports championship. They shut down Richmond street and it turned into a huge block party: folks just wandering around and congratulating each other, high fiving and hugging complete strangers. It was awesome.
Chris Langtron: Celebrating the Olympic hockey gold medals in downtown Toronto back in 2002, Ottawa in 2010 and Montreal in 2014. Different places each time but same results: streets filled with a nonstop city wide party.
Greg Hogan: San Francisco Giants 2010 World Series parade. Over a million people packed into downtown San Francisco with people literally hanging from light posts, standing on bus stops (me), and sitting in trees to get a view.
Matthieu Rident: France winning the Euro basketball 2013, after years of failing against Spain, has given basketball a front stage role in French sport now.
Jeremy Chisenhall: The entire state of Kentucky went nuts when University of Kentucky won in 2012, and again when they made the Final Four last year. It was pretty incredible how happy everyone was. We all went out, especially the people on campus and every UK fan came together to celebrate in the streets.
Now, with Germany winning the World Cup just Sunday night in dramatic fashion, every German around the World can be proud of their nationality as they went into a celebratory party last night. With my grandparents being from Italy, I got to experience the celebrations in the summer of 2006 and it’s something that will stick with me forever, it made me proud of my ancestry. This is what the World Cup does to once-migrated families around the world, make the younger generations proud of their roots.
Sport is not “just a game”. Sports are what define us. Sports are what unite us as a people. Sports help us recover from a tragedy. Sports make us who we are and make us aware of one another in our own countries and neighboring ones. Sport is better than music, dance or comedy at unifying a global population.
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