The Case for Canadian Exceptionalsim or the Evolving Landscape of Canadian Sports

As times change, economies and societies change with them. From a time in the mid 90's, when it appeared professional sports in Canada was on life support, to today, where professional sports in Canada seems as strong as it ever was, Canadian sports fans have been riding a roller coaster of mild success and seemingly prolonged failure for quite some time now. In some ways, traditional, Canadiana in our sports scene is going stronger than ever, and still, the global nature of sports (as has oft been predicted for the last 20 or 30 years) is making a real impact on the Canadian landscape. Canada's historical favourite sport is thriving, Canada's only exclusive professional league is seeing its first wave of new construction in decades, and Canada's favourite "World's game" is seeing a huge boom in infrastructure and professional expansion.

More hockey, hockey, hockey...

I suppose the best place to start is with Canada's first love (and fuck lacrosse). The game of hockey, particularly at the highest professional level, is experiencing a bit of a renaissance in the wake of the US economic downturn. All of a sudden the real money of fans in markets like Winnipeg and Quebec City seems a lot more enticing than the theoretical money of fans in markets like Atlanta and Phoenix. Canada has already re-claimed one team from the wave of southern expansion and it seems entirely possible that a second could be on its way. With the prospect of new, NHL caliber arenas in Toronto and Quebec City, it seems only a matter of time before Canada sees an eighth (and if we dare to dream, ninth) NHL team.

New Winnipeg Bluebombers Stadium

Canada's lone, exclusive professional (or more specifically, relevant) sports league, the CFL, is also on a tear of new development. With BC Place already refurbished to nearly NFL caliber levels, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats set to move into new buildings in the next couple years, and the Ottawa Roughriders still trying (although somewhat uninspiringly) to return to the CFL in a refurbished Frank Clair Stadium, the league might look like an entirely different animal by the end of the decade. Throw in the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who are in the very preliminary stages of trying to get a new stadium built, and pretty soon the majority of CFL teams could be playing in brand new venues. For a league that spent the last couple of decades playing in dilapidated and neglected stadiums that could be seen, at best, as high in "character" while low in just about everything else, this could be a real turning point for the league. If the Toronto Argonauts could ever get their shit together and move out of the soul sucking cavern that is the Rogers Centre football configuration, and into an outdoor, 25-30K, CFL specific stadium, that franchise, and by-proxy the league could be on a real roll.

A big part of what made Toronto's newest franchise such a success was the character of the stadium. Torontonians wanted a change from indoor sports, and BMO Field (along with Toronto FC), offered fans that chance. I think a similar Toronto Argonauts stadium would probably have the same effect on the fanbase.

A stadium like this would save the Argos

BMO Field

Speaking of Toronto FC, the third aspect of Canada's evolving pro sports scene starts with them. People have projected for decades that soccer was "the next big thing", both in Canada, and the United States, but it seems that finally, in Canada at least, that soccer may finally, actually be “the next big thing”. After Toronto FC's initial success (at the box-office, not on the field, obviously), Major League Soccer saw potential. In conversations after that initial success commissioner Don Garber drew comparisons to the NHL. He saw that the NHL was able to not just sustain itself, but grow by being a big player in Canada (not to mention off put some of the losses of American franchises with the profits of Canadian ones). Garber saw that the Canadian market seemed to be more accepting of Major League Soccer as a professional league, and decided to act. Soon enough, both Vancouver and Montreal would be given franchises and Garber's plan to cash in on Canadian soccer fans was underway.



Big, beautiful, soccer specific-ish stadium



Not that there is anything wrong with that. As a Canadian soccer fan I am happy to be taken advantage of (to a point. I won't pay TFC's ever inflating ticket price, but I am happy to have more teams in Canada). To look back at the difference in soccer infrastructure in this country over the decade is almost unbelievable. From a nation with zero soccer specific stadiums, to a nation with three-ish (okay, two but BC Place isn't that bad) in just over 5 years time is incredibly impressive. BMO Field, while barebones when it comes to amenities is a SSS with natural grass, and a primary tenant, something Canadian soccer fans could have only dreamt of ten years ago. Throw in the great location and Canada (and specifically Toronto) has got something that could now be called a true home field for the national team. Toronto FC and Canadian soccer fans have really hit the jackpot with BMO Field. It can be hard to look past the dismal performance of the home team, but in the grand scheme of things, the progress is astounding. August nights at BMO Field, with the sights and sounds of the CNE midway as a backdrop to a Toronto or Canada home game, have become a real special atmosphere. One that Canadian sports fans ought to be proud of, and one that sports fans anywhere in the word ought to be jealous of.

Concept for renovated Stade Saputo

With new teams and new arenas sprouting up all across Canada, I think it is safe to say that professional sports in our country might be entering a golden age. It would be great if the success of the teams could match the success of the businesses, but I suppose we shouldn't expect everything all at once.


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On Sandusky, Paterno, The Chain of Command and Diminished Responsibility

The first thing that needs to be gotten out of the way; Nobody is letting Jerry Sandusky off the hook. I have seen this argument from many Paterno defenders; that nobody is paying any attention to Sandusky and people are behaving as if Paterno had raped those young boys. Nobody is ignoring the perverse, disgusting nature of what Sandusky has been accused of. If Jerry Sandusky is indeed guilty of what he has been charged with (and lets face it, every article, radio segment and TV commentary so far has basically assumed that yes, he is absolutely guilty, so I won’t even attempt to play the “innocent until proven guilty” card), he is a despicable human being. The type of person who has his room in hell bought and paid for. God willing, Jerry Sandusky will get his punishment. Not that it will necessarily do any good for his victims, but we as a society like to know that criminals are being punished. Sandusky is a monster, and he will get what is coming to him.

The bigger question, in terms of moral culpability, in terms of room for discussion, and to put it crassly, in terms of salacious story telling, is how do Joe Paterno’s actions (or more specifically, inactions) fit into the narrative of this tragic story?

We know Joe Paterno was made aware of Sandusky’s activities by then graduate assistant and present wide receivers coach Mike McQueary. The details don’t need to be repeated, suffice to say McQueary witnessed Sandusky engaging in inappropriate contact with a young boy in the Penn State football team showers. The degree to which the “inappropriateness” of that behavior was expressly communicated to Joe Paterno is still up for debate, but I think most people would agree that if you were told about “inappropriate behavior” involving an old man, a young boy, and a shower, warning bells would start shooting off like crazy. It is hard to imagine most decent people could hear those details, as sanitized as they may be, and not feel compelled to, at the very least investigate further, if not simply dial 911 immediately.

But what Joe Paterno specifically knew really isn’t the point I want to make. There is going to be a lot more information to come to light surrounding this story, and eventually we will know much more specifics. And considering the wholesale housecleaning at Penn State (with the suspicious exception of McQueary, one of the few people there with a first hand, eye-witness account of Sandusky’s crimes), rumors that there is much more to come in this story (specifically Mark Madden’s assertion of possible “pimping” of young boys to wealthy Penn State donors), and of course, the missing district attorney, it is entirely possible that this whole scandal is much, much bigger than just Jerry Sandusky’s heinous actions and the hapless inactions of Paterno and school administrators.

Rather, the issue I want to comment on is that this whole incident is a classic example of an insulated community, a rigid chain of command, and the diminished responsibility that comes with “alerting your superiors”. We hear this story all the time. From corporations, to government bureaucrats, to police services; people become involved and engrossed in these isolated environments, and the institutionalized structure of the chain of command ceases to be an efficient method of organization, and instead becomes a rudimentary process of “report filing”, that serves mainly to protect the structure of the institution. Individual responsibility and personal morality is superceded by institutional consistency and regimented processes that serve to remove emotion and humanity from a discussion and replace them with adjudicative consistency and long term structural stability. In much smaller words, people who would otherwise “do the right thing” are allowed to take a step back and remove themselves from the situation because their immediate surroundings tell them “that’s how things are done”. When you get so entrenched into the organizational culture of something so big, so built up by friends, family, students, supporters and even politicians, it becomes almost impossible to remove yourself from that environment and say “wait a second, is this how we are really going to do this?!”.

These people become so entrenched in their environment that they are unable to recognize their biases and look at themselves and their institution with any level of rational perspective. One need not look any further than the reactions of Penn State students and football players to see just how far gone some of these people get. Now it is more understandable from young people (although still not excusable); they’re young, they’re stupid and they don’t know any better. So when a Penn State football player tweets about Joe Paterno’s firing being akin to “a modern day crucifixion”, you just roll your eyes and laugh about it. But the problem is that this train of thought, this state of mind doesn’t always end when these young people become adults. It is bred into the institution and into its members.

Its why the riot cop on the front line maces a handful of corralled teenage girls. Its why the Catholic priest feels sexual abuse can be best handled “internally”, and its why people like Paterno, McQueary, Curley, Schultz and whoever else may ultimately be implicated in this scandal were able to go about their days knowing a pedophile was in their midst. The institution becomes so all encompassing that it’s members become comfortable seceding their own moral compass to that of a faceless, soulless institution. One no longer has to make those kinds of strenuous moral decisions, because they are part of the bigger machine. All they need to do now is submit information they might have to the next person up the line, and they then feel that their hands are wiped clean.

It is a bit of a catch 22. Society needs structure. Society needs organization to exist and to get things done. But as we have seen, that structure that is necessary to get almost anything done, will on occasion get things done at the expense of real human victims. Because organzations (or to call them by another name, corporations), don’t have a moral compass or a conscious. Organizations do what is best for the organization. And organizations do not have feelings.

Jerry Sandusky is the true criminal in all of this. But the organization of Penn State, and all of those who contributed to it’s “functioning” in spite of these known problems bear some moral culpability. As a football coach, I doubt Joe Paterno would have ever accepted a player simply doing the bare minimum required by procedure so why did he do the bare minimum in a situation immeasurably more important that a football game?

Some correct steps were taken last night by the Penn State board of trustees but there are still more correct steps that need to be taken. And if the rumors surrounding Sandusky’s “Second Mile” children’s organization are even partially true, this whole story is only going to get immeasurably more depraved.

It makes you sad to know you live in a world where this kind of thing can happen, but it reinforces the knowledge that people need to maintain the strength of their convictions. It is a bit of a cliche at this point, but as the saying goes, "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing", and if any good will come from this horrible situation, its that people will be reminded to speak up, and to do something when they see evil.

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