Acid Queen’s letter to Vancouver
January 4, 2006
Fans in Vancouver aren’t making any friends south of the border this week, if they care–which is a very slim possibility. Acid Queen wonders where the animosity is coming from…
You want to be mad at Jack Johnson, fine. I understand completely, and I’m not all that happy with his little stunt either.
But come on, folks. There’s no need to bring signs saying “U SUCK USA”, chanting “USA SUCKS”, “GO AWAY USA” and basically treating the visitors from south of 49 like crap. There’s no excuse for it. If the fans in Grand Forks had treated the Canadians that way last year, I know damn good and well that all y’all would have been up in arms over it and screaming and crying about the “classless American fans” and calling for another burning of the White House (don’t think we’ve forgotten about 1812).
Iwo: Personally, I’ve always taken great pride in the fact that hockey fans are a few notches above our counterparts in the other major sports. I still believe that, but the behavior in Vancouver and Atlanta this week is dragging our fan base into the muck with the other sports.
I think we can all assume that the anger heading south from Canada has little to do with hockey and a lot more to do with politics on a much larger scale.
Abel to Yzerman 
January 4, 2006 at 3:47 -06:0001
Obviously the boos for J2 were for the Domi/Bertuzzi-style cheapshot on Downie, but the anti-american attitude? Well that is generally(key word) how Canadians feel about yanks, hockey or otherwise. Canadians have arguably the best view of the distorted states of america and we don’t much care for it. Tourism Canada has posted the lowest Canada to US travel figures since 1958. A hockey game is a perfect vehicle for those who attended to vent anti-yank sentiments. It would be abhorent to any empirically minded observer to say that feeling is shared by all Canucks, but hey, this ain’t rocket science, read between the lines. The joke in Canada is we will allow the yanks to annex Saskatchewan so the map of the states turns into the middle finger salute. That ain’t gonna happen cuz it would make the usa the most powerful hockey nation and we need those prairie boys.
The US WJC team has talent and grit. They play like Canadians and Canada will have their hands full with the talent coming out of the states in the future.
Invoking sticks or stones, I hope the yanks remember they are just boos, not bombs…
January 4, 2006 at 3:47 -06:0001
Two things I respect most about Canada: their fanaticism over the sport of hockey, and their national pride. Clearly, those go hand-in-hand more often than not, which I think is great.
Boos for Johnson’s hit, eh? I guess that must have occured much earlier in the tournament than I thought. Maybe the Vancouver fans, as hockey savvy as they are, must have seen it coming a few days before it actually happened.