Games should remind us of what Canada is all about

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This article was published 23/10/2014 (4059 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They are going to play O Canada in Ottawa tonight and then they will play a game of Canadian football with our country tuning in from coast to coast.

We can join together in a football stadium and in our living rooms from Summerside to Victoria and all points in between.

The authorities have deemed it safe and the CFL has made the decision to have the Ottawa RedBlacks host the Montreal Alouettes as scheduled.

“It is our honour, our duty and our responsibility to host this game,” RedBlacks owner Jeff Hunt told the Free Press Thursday. “This is the power of sport, we can bring a community together to mourn, start to heal and more than anything feel normal again. There is something powerful when a city comes together and pays tribute to a tragic event as a community. The national anthem will be a very emotional, inspiring moment I’m sure.”

The moment will perhaps help remind us who we are and what we stand for. We don’t stand for terror and we won’t be held hostage in our own country. We’ll convene and we’ll celebrate our lifestyle. We’ll stand for freedom and for one another.

We won’t target people because of the way they look or the way they pray. We’ll continue to welcome people of all races and creeds into our country because that’s why we exist as a nation. It’s what makes us so diverse, beautiful and strong.

This is a time to protect ourselves. But we must also guard against forsaking our values. Hate attacked us. Hate cannot lead us.

Let there be no safe haven in Canada for the evil perpetrated in Ottawa on Wednesday. But fear and hate mongering can’t be allowed to rise from these moments.

We know our way of life, our tolerance and our acceptance. We can’t turn our back on these tenets of our society. If we do, we wouldn’t be Canadians. And this wouldn’t be Canada.

Sport is a microcosm of the melting pot and must rise above politics and showcase our civil liberties. The dressing room doesn’t care what you look like. It cares how you play and what kind of teammate you are.

Black, white, gay, francophone, anglophone, Arabic, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, rich and poor. People from every walk of life pull on jerseys to play hockey or football or baseball or golf or curling in this country. It’s one of the ways we come together. We play and cheer together.

Sport isn’t a perfect and open place of tolerance. There’s no such thing. But it strives for such an open and accepting face.

It didn’t matter that Paul Pulver was Jewish when I was growing up in Peterborough, Ont. I wanted him on my team because he could skate and shoot. I didn’t care that Veepish Patel had brown skin. He was on my football team and so I had his back, and he had mine. Terry Quinlan was Irish and had seven brothers and sisters and was always wearing hand-me-downs. He gave me my first glass of powdered milk. I didn’t care. I wanted him on my team because he never gave up on the puck.

Our volunteer coaches didn’t make speeches about love and tolerance. They didn’t have to. It was sports, and we wanted to win. We had a quarterback with a dad from Sweden and a mom from Scotland.

We had a running back raised in Italy and an offensive line led by a bearded, gap-toothed farm kid named Lorne McCall. In my last year of high school football, a black girl tried out and earned a spot as a second-string running back.

Our coach made one speech about the way we should talk in front of her and that was the beginning and the end of it. She was on our team.

Think about our arenas and stadiums.

The opportunity for the mob mentality to run amok is never greater. And yet we so rarely see it. We don’t want racism in our rinks and fields. We just don’t. And that’s a great thing, and we should fight like hell to protect it.

For many of us, our most nationalist moments come watching hockey games. Our chests swell with pride when we see the Maple Leaf on ice. Think about those moments in a bar or school library when our team has scored and you’ve turned to hug the stranger beside you.

Where they go to church or what country their father is from doesn’t enter the equation. It’s a pure moment when we forget everything but who we are cheering for. And that’s Canada.

Tonight is a chance for us to get together and cheer for Canada, to oppose those who would tear down what we have built.

Let’s tell them they’re in for a fight.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca Twitter:@garylawless

Do you think it’s brave for the CFL to go ahead with the game? Would you attend? Join the conversation in the comments below.