Words: Paul S. Hendren
Several years ago TSN sports anchor Gord Miller entered into a heated radio debate about the priority hockey should have within the Canadian sports media. Miller’s proclamation, “it would be suicide to lead off any sportscast with anything but a hockey story”.
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To this date his words have stuck in my craw. I don’t blame the veteran television personality for towing the party line. For decades hockey has been embedded in our culture just like cricket dominates the broadsheets in India or football infiltrates the BBC. It is my argument, however, that Canadian sports culture, like Canada, is vastly changed since the days when Eddie Shack donned skates for ’67 Maple Leafs.
Two Canadian teams are embarking on world championships this summer. Yet it has been the saga of a well compensated Czech hockey defenceman, who has been wearing the blue and white in Toronto, that has garnished center stage in all facets of Canada’s one dimensional sports media.
At the end of August Canada’s hoopsters will be defending Canadian pride in Turkey during the 2010 FIBA World Championships. Our Canadian men’s national volleyball team will be doing the same in September from Italy during the FIVB tournament -considered only second to the Olympics in stature.
Our hardwood giants are a group of young men who are now plying their trade across the globe in such locales as the Philippines to Latvia with several stopovers in between. Many are far displaced from the glitz of the NBA with many others making significant sacrifices to attend the tournament defending Canada’s honor.
Canada’s volleyballers are a skilled home brewed group of athletes who honed their craft in our backyard of the Canadian university ranks. They have collectively raised the profile of a powerful sport once considered in Canada a recreational pursuit during phys-ed class.
The Canadian sports media needs to acknowledge that our high performance athletes extend beyond those who ‘lace-em-up’ on ice. Canada is a diverse and rich sporting nation. Maybe the puck heads who control the flow of information will one day acknowledge Canada’s new sports landscape.
