In 2019, it felt as though we were living through a moment of fundamental change in Canadian sport. Stephen Brunt reflects on the year that was:
It felt like that in 2019, in Canada, in the mostly pretend world of sport — as though we were living through a moment of fundamental change.
When you looked at the youth, at the gender mix, at the faces in those crowds at the victory parade, you saw reflected the urban, diverse Canada where most of us reside. Given the sport’s explosive growth on the participation level, the waves of Canadian talent entering the NBA and the possibility of Olympic and world championship medals down the road, it was impossible to deny what was happening before our eyes.
It began with the departure of Don Cherry, someone whose place in our national narrative will long be debated. What evolved over the decades in those minutes between the first and second periods on Saturday night is pretty much impossible to explain to a non-native: an ex-coach, originally brought onto the show to talk just about hockey who somehow morphed into a commentator on all subjects as proxy for the Average Canadian.
The intent was clear enough that it cost Cherry his job, while at the same time reinforcing the notion that hockey and hockey culture remained the exclusive domain of an older, whiter Canada, resentful and fearful of the other, that it had calcified 25 years ago or more.
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