Anaheim and Winnipeg: the capital of cold vs. the city on the edge of anonymity

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2015 (3835 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Over the years, Winnipeg sports fans have grown accustomed to trash-talking the fine people of Saskatchewan at playoff time.

Familiarity, as they say, breeds all manner of contempt. And who could be more familiar than our potash-mining, canola-farming, bunny-hug-clad brothers and sisters to the west?

For the first time in decades, playoff season doesn’t have anything to do with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It involves the Jets and the California club formerly known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

On the ice, the two cities are connected through a mutual love of Teemu Selanne, the most beloved Finn on this continent since Huckleberry. The current NHL Jets also owe a debt of gratitude to the Anaheim Ducks for failing to sign Mathieu Perreault as a free agent last summer.

Off the ice, however, the Winnipeg-Anaheim rivalry packs all the emotional wallop of a “current occupant” form letter from Shaw Cable or a four-page list of dubious accomplishments by your local MLA.

In an effort to stoke the competitive fire between the two cities, here’s how they actually stack up:

Numbers

Winnipeg’s population is estimated at 719,000. The broader metropolitan area — that is, the region where more than half the adults come from every day to work or study — encompasses 793,000 souls.

Anaheim, officially, has a population of 345,000, based on a 2013 estimate. But that’s just inside official city limits.

Anaheim is also part of what’s officially known as the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area, which has 12.8 million people. That’s the second-largest metro area in the United States. Furthermore, what’s officially known as Greater Los Angeles has 18.2 million residents.

Advantage: Anaheim by three or four Torontos, plus a Cincinnati.

Urban identity

Winnipeg is often derided as lacking in the density department. Our downtown has too much surface parking. Our suburbs are too spread out. Our public transit system has a mere 3.6 kilometres of bus corridors, thanks to decades of urban-planning stupidity.

Compared to Anaheim, however, Winnipeg is an urbanist’s dream. The Manitoba capital is a standalone city with a definitive identity. We’re not a suburb of somewhere else. Heck, we’re not even close to anywhere else.

Anaheim is just some sprawling edge city. It’s one of the many faceless suburbs that fills the space between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Anaheim may as well be Irvine, Santa Ana or Mission Viejo, which all look like the same series of freeway exits when you’re speeding down Interstate 5.

In fact, Anaheim is just like Oakland, in the words of Gertrude Stein: “There is no there, there.”

Advantage: Winnipeg, by mere virtue of the fact we aren’t residents of metro-somewhere-else.

Natural disasters

Every couple of years, a blizzard comes along and blankets Winnipeg. We dig out in a few hours and treat the event as an excuse to put on skis.

Winnipeg also faces floods, but you can see them coming weeks ahead of time.

Anaheim, however, suffers from unpredictable earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault. Most are almost imperceptible, but if you believe the doomsayers, the so-called Big One — a magnitude 8 ‘quake — will eventually reduce the Los Angeles area to rubble.

Advantage: Winnipeg, because no one makes disaster movies about slow-moving floods.

Amusement parks

Winnipeg would love to claim Tinkertown Family Fun Park as its own. Alas, that honour actually goes to the RM of Springfield. Our neighbour to the east also claims Fun Mountain, the waterslides made famous by would-be 2014 mayoral candidate Mike Vogiatzakis.

Anaheim has Disneyland, a theme park named after some weird dude who decided to have his head preserved in a freezer after his death. Reputedly, there may also be some rides there.

Advantage: Anaheim, by at least a million mouse ears.

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Climate

Winnipeg is one of the coldest cities on earth. Anaheim has palm trees. Given the choice, most humans would prefer to live in a city where the air doesn’t hurt their face.

Winnipeg, however, hasn’t worried about water shortages for almost a century. Right now, Anaheim is one of several California communities trying to cut back on water use, due to an historic drought.

Advantage: Let’s call it even, palm trees be damned.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca