Bring The Cup home!

Date: 4/15/2010
Watching: Vancouver Canucks vs. LA Kings, Game 1, Round 1

The Canucks are going to win the Stanley Cup. A ludicrous thing to say, I know, after the first game of the first round of the interminably long NHL playoffs. But if you'd seen that game, and in particular, the audience, you'd feel the same way. The Cup hasn't been in Canada for far too long, and to see and hear the crowd's reaction to the OT winner, with the "It's Our Time" signs, it just seems like destiny. Not only that, but the Olympic gold actually takes a bit of the pressure off the Canadian teams. The pressure's still there, I'm sure, but maybe not the crushing pressure that, say, the Cubs feel if they are in the playoffs (remind me to tell you THAT story sometime). So, since sports commentary is predicated on nothing if not ludicrously uninformed opinions, I'll re-iterate: the Canucks will win the Cup this year. Count on it.

(I'm aware that this throws a wrench in my becoming-a-fan-of-the-Sharks thing. But you can't force these things, and I'm sure I'll retroactively justify whatever decision I end up making).

Another thing I realized, watching this game, was that I had somehow never really reflected upon the fact that the one thing that unites and defines all sports, is that there are no examples of a competition being regarded as truly valid if it is not held in front of a live audience. Anything else would be considered practice. Even if it was televised live, it would be, at best, an "exhibition." The live, in-person audience is simply not optional. And that doesn't seem like much, until you stop, and try to think WHY that should be. After all, it's not stated in any rulebook. Nothing about the points or scoring or eventual result is dependent on an audience being there to see it. And yet it is a truth so fundamental that it never even needs to be stated: if there's no audience, there's no game. It's no accident that sports, like theater, started out as religion.

And I think this is really what fans are trying to say when they say something like "I'm the one who pays his salary!" Which is true, as far as it goes, but kind of silly; after all, you can quit paying their salary any time.. But what we really mean is, "I am a fundamental part of what you do. What you do would not be what you do, without me." And it's true. The fan IS a part of the event, and when athletes act otherwise, we're not wrong to be insulted.