According to the OECD, (Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development-an international economic organization of
34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world
trade), Canada Canada Canada
ranks third behind only Australia
and Sweden. Not too shabby, eh?
I happened to read the article about
the OECD rankings the day after CBC Television's Hockey Day in Canada
celebrated Canada's national sport and a
week after our local skating stars Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers qualified
for a spot on the 2014 Canadian Winter Olympic Figure Skating Team representing
Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia in a few weeks. I was
already welling up with local and national pride so the OECD announcement was
just icing on the cake.
Since 2000 the CBC's Hockey Day in
Canada has celebrated the game of hockey and its connection to our country and
culture. Like so many other Canadians, my introduction to the game of hockey
came through my parents love of the game and the Saturday night broadcasts on
CBC television. The grainy black and white images came into our living room
while the whole household tuned in week after week every winter. In fact, I
don't think I can actually remember life before hockey.
Being a prairie farm boy my Dad grew
up playing the game in northern Saskatchewan and my brother Jack, the oldest in
the family and fifteen years my senior, grew up playing the game, too, so there
was little chance that my other brother, Gord, who is eighteen months older
than me, and I would grow up without hockey in our lives. We played it on the
outdoor and indoor rinks, the streets, both winter and summer, in the school
gymnasium, in the basement and when we weren't physically playing the game in
those places we were playing our table-top version of the game with the same
intensity that we brought to the real versions. It was always hockey, hockey,
hockey.
The last time I actually played in a
hockey game, though, was about four years ago in the Dale Blackstock Memorial
Rec Tournament and during the course of the weekend both of my skates broke. I
was thinking...hmmm...that could be a sign. Then a few months later I herniated
a disc in my lower back and that sign was a little more emphatic so I haven't
played since the fall of '09.
Although my back recuperation has
not worked out as well as I had hoped it would I gladly accepted a new pair of
skates as a birthday gift last month and I'm thinking that I might not be done
with the old game of hockey just yet.
Hockey is only one of the many
aspects of life in Canada that makes it such a great place to live and I didn't
really need an OECD Better Life Index report to tell me that we've got a pretty
good thing going on here in The Great White North but it's always nice to hear it
anyway.
"Every day is a great day for
hockey."-Mario Lemieux (1965-).
No comments:
Post a Comment