The Canadian flag is waved during the national anthem prior to start of game between the Minnesota Wild and the Ottawa Senators at the Canadian Tire Centre on Feb. 1, 2025 in Ottawa.Marc DesRosiers/Reuters
One of us was going to have to do it first. I just didn’t think it would be Ottawa. That’s a company town that produces only one product – diplomacy.
But on Saturday night, when they sang the American national anthem ahead of a Senators-Minnesota Wild game, Ottawa fired first. The crowd booed steadily through the beginning of the Star-Spangled Banner. They also booed over the peacemakers who tried to clap them down at the end. It was an undeniable international incident.
Admit it – it felt pretty good. That’s a not nice feeling, but we’re getting beyond nice.
What struck you watching it back on the Sportsnet broadcast was the cringing obeisance we routinely pay to American symbology. The shimmering stars and stripes that wrap the LED boards that ring our arenas. The visiting fans with caps on hearts. The camera panning up to linger on the American flag in the rafters.
They don’t do that for us. Why are we doing that for them? No wonder they think of us as America Jr.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referenced the Capital Anthem Massacre in his pleading address to America (“emotions may run high here and there, especially around hockey games”).
The speech went heavy on poetic flourish, including references to all the wars we’ve fought in together. Too bad no one in America will see it. Because who among them is going to sit through ten minutes watching this nobody complain about taxation when there’s high-school volleyball on somewhere.
Even if they did, I’m fairly certain that the typical American has no clue what “the fields of Flanders” refers to, or what happened on “the Korean peninsula.”
The speech seemed pulled from a bygone era – three months ago, when we were on diplomatic cruise control.
We weren’t friends, exactly – more acquaintances – and the relationship was never anywhere close to equal. We were constantly telling other countries that America was our best pal in the whole world, while America laughed uncomfortably and tried to remember our name.
I’m thinking of the recent Ross Douthat ‘O Canada, Come Join Us’ column in the New York Times that got the CBC-adjacent crowd so exercised. While running through his ethnic CV, Douthat wrote of “a current of maple syrup running through my children’s veins.”
This is one of the smartest commentators in the U.S.A., and even he has no clue how to talk to us. Zero. That’s what we’re dealing with here: near-total ignorance.
In the past, that was fine. In good times, we don’t need them to understand us, or care to find out. That was the time for teleprompters, and prepared speeches, and corny hockey metaphors.
Now it’s a shouting war. At the outset at least, expressions of rage and betrayal are not just understandable. They’re necessary.
They are fitting to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of our countrymen and women. If that doesn’t make you angry, we need to have a family meeting and discuss what the word ‘family’ means.
Under those circumstances, expecting the affectless drones who make up our political class to speechify America into submission isn’t going to do it. If you want to grab the attention of our former friends, you have to speak to them in the only language they all understand – sports.
Where a million speeches will be ignored, a proper booing at a hockey game will not. A booing at an NBA or MLB game is even bigger news. A booing at an NBA playoff game might top ESPN.
Is that productive? No, of course not.
We’re not dealing with productive people at the moment. We’re dealing with bullies and know-nothings. They are trying to cow us. That will set the terms for whatever negotiation follows, even if that negotiation is years from now. It’s up to us to decide whether or not we want to be cowed.
A hockey mindset helps. Ask a former NHLer how much good constructive dialogue does you when someone’s got hold of your shirt and the first blow is incoming.
A fistfight is not the time for rational discussion. It is the time to strike back, indiscriminately if necessary, in order to convince the attacking party that this isn’t going to go how they’d hoped. The goal is to wake the other guy up.
Once you’ve got them off you and starting to reconsider their approach, then you can maybe think about having a conversation. Or maybe punch them some more.
The “think about it” part means the first thing Canada has to do is make the great swath of Americans who do not live within driving distance of the border, who don’t work in the auto industry, who don’t read The Atlantic, understand there is a problem.
“You thought we were buddies. Maybe you haven’t heard, but we aren’t any more. You are dealing unfairly with us. We don’t like you.”
That’s what booing at sports is. A cry that will be heard.
America has a few strange weaknesses not shared by other superpowers. One of them is a terrible need to be seen as good and fair. We know because Canada shares this affliction.
It doesn’t mean they are either thing. Just that they like to think of themselves that way.
Sports is where Canada can remind them that at least one non-enemy no longer thinks they are a shining beacon. We think they’re acting like idiots and embarrassing themselves. It’s time for someone to take America’s car keys away and call them a cab. They’re ruining the party.
We’re not making distinctions here. We don’t care who you voted for. The details of American party politics don’t make any difference to the Canadian family whose main breadwinner is about to get laid off as a result of actions by the U.S. government.
We dislike you all equally, as an indistinguishable group. The same way that you see and treat us as a bunch of dippy maple syrup drinkers.
When we see you, we will no longer pretend this is all fine by us. If you want to fix things, you have our number. If not, then let’s go.
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