ShareThisVANCOUVER, British Columbia - There aren't really that many hockey nights in Canada, at least not in the way we Canadians imagine them.
One country, gathered 'round a game; perhaps it was true every week way back in the mists of time, in the one or two channel world, television on Saturday night as the national hearth, a place where friends and families came together, the way they came together to worship other gods the following morning.
But that world long ago was blown to smithereens, and now we live in a time of vast and near infinite choice; when you can watch anything from anywhere anytime, on your television, your computer, on your phone, and when nothing is really special there is not much reason to assemble anywhere anytime.
Except on rare occasions like Wednesday night, except for a game like this, when you want company, when it feels so much better to be with your tribe.
Molson Canadian Hockey House is a kind of fantasy man cave located in a great big tent that sits within a short walk of the rink where Canada played Russia in the Olympic hockey tournament. On this night hardly a soul among those packed into place was wearing a color other than red, and they were giddy from the opening face off, the sponsor's product only a small part of that. An extraordinary scene but also the same scene that was being repeated literally everywhere in this country, in homes and down at the Legion, in bars, in even fancy restaurants, in any place where folks could get together (and where they couldn't, where it was impossible, you knew that somehow they were trying to tune in, on the radio, on the net, that for one night, this great vast place was a single village writ large.)
The biggest sporting event in Canadian history? At least in terms of television ratings -- and by that measure, also the biggest event period. Not the most important, when there are occasional elections that change a country's course and referenda that might split it in two, but even minus the gravitas, you'd be hard pressed to argue that it didn't matter, because it mattered just that it could happen.
Some of us were alive a long time ago, and remember another just-a-hockey-game, when it seemed everything was on the line, us against them, a story anyone younger has long since tired of hearing. But the great things is how everything has changed -- including the official name of the country that was then the great other -- and nothing has changed at all. There is no more political baggage, nor more proxy war over economic systems, but the referees are still blind, the guys in the other uniform are still fancy dan divers, and the determination of our boys, their willingness to get their hands dirty, is still in our minds -- and last night in reality -- what forever gives us the edge.
But there were no nervous moments this time, at least after Canada's first couple of goals. No fingernails chewed down to the nub. By the end of the first period, it was crystal clear the Russians could play in only one direction, that their defense was suspect and their goaltending erratic, that pushed back on their heels they didn't have a chance. A rout -- a great, delicious rout -- devoured with the enthusiasm of a feast for the starving.
(All of that, and Team Canada haven't won a thing yet, they could still in theory leave these home Games without a medal)
Where were you then? In a high school cafeteria converted for the purpose on a day when education was beside the point, huddled around crummy televisions that were color in theory only, in agony until the famous goal.
Where are you now? In Canada. Beyond that, at least for this night, the fine distinctions of geography and language and distance didn't really matter.
(Contact Stephen Brunt at brunts(at)globeandmail.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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