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                                                Irony on Ice

By Ed Basquill, PE

          I am not one to gloat over the misfortunes of others. That is not my way. I am also a patriotic American, and would like to see my countrymen do well at the Olympics. So, why does the news of the US Olympic Hockey team being eliminated in the quarter finals make me smile? I bought the video of the movie about the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team, dubbed the miracle on ice. Who could forget the charismatic image of the team’s goalie, draped in the American Flag?  I lived close to the Spectrum in the glory days of the Philadelphia Flyers, back when men were men and the mightiest of such creatures were known as “The Broad Street Bullies.”  Technology was different then in a way that made the victory a little bit sweeter. I remember watching the end of one of their cardiac moment final second championship victories, and I knew the impossible would happen---because seven to ten seconds before it happened on my TV, I could hear the roar from the stadium a mile away, and the clarion call of the car horns of the revelers in the parking lot who could not make it into the sold out event.

          When I find myself giddy over our Olympic loss, I am not gloating over misfortune, because I don’t believe in luck. I think some things are left to chance, but statistically, hard work can be shown to pay off, and the cream can be shown to rise to the top. You make your own luck.  You can get a bad break and lose a game, but it’s hard to blame a whole life on luck.

          I guess I just like seeing the classless adolescents that somehow pass for men because of their extreme age come face to face with their impish boyhood. It’s not just that I’m still angry about the hockey season they stole from me. I thank them for that. Hockey was kind of an addiction, and they broke me of it, cold turkey. I got to watch re-runs of old games from way back when men played hockey, and the comparison was not favorable. I don’t even know if they are on strike or playing the professional game anymore. Star player Mike Modano is quoted in full whine in a press account, explaining their loss as the result of the team having to make their own hotel and plane reservations. I thought it might have had a little bit more to do with how few shots they took on goal, but that’s just me, a former NHL fan.  I’m glad for the United States that Modano had his travel arrangements to blame, otherwise he might have shamed our country even more by blaming the lack of anyone to help him with  the toilet tissue strokes to his tushy. For men, a well fought loss is not a shame, but for a boy any excuse will do, and the twin concepts of honor and grace are beyond comprehension.

          I blame the plight of modern American hockey and sports in general on how it reflects our “Nanny Culture” and all of the “Nanny” technology, especially all of those stupid pads and helmets. They escalate the violent aspects of the game by pouring money into masking it with pads, following our cultural model of how we manage public education and social programs.  It used to be you could only hit someone so hard or you would hurt yourself; now you can go for broke thanks to the Nanny state culture in which we live.  The Stanley Cup Champion Broad Street Bullies were known for their brawling, tough guy style, yet rarely did anyone get more than the usual macho bloody nose, fat lip, or assorted scrapes. Sure they had guys drop the gloves and go at it, but there is something admirable in their scrapes, admirable in a very politically incorrect way in our feminized Nanny society.  At least you could only hit someone until your hands hurt. Now professional athletes have better body armor than an Iraqi soldier, and people are hospitalized, arrested even, and unbelievably are attacking fans. Our society rightly condemns violence, but all violence isn’t the same. There is a big difference between a couple of guys dropping the gloves and fighting, and a guy hitting another guy over the head with a stick when he is not looking, like in the court case involving a personal foul in an NHL game. I have seen games, back when men were men, when a brutal cheap shot would clear the bench and get the guy “physically reprimanded,” by his own team.  I say make them take the pads off; it will drive the game towards one of skill and serve to separate the men from the boys.

          In a sense, perhaps when one looks at the state of sports in general, I owe hockey an apology; maybe instead of laughing I should be crying. I mean, look at football. We have Peyton Manning, a quarterback often complimented for being smart, blaming his linemen for his latest choking episode in a big game; we have Donovan McNabb blaming problems on race, and Terrell Owens blaming everyone but himself for his “misfortunes.” 

The Space Age Kevlar pads are far from the only Nanny technology; get rid of that stupid, inane instant replay. It used to be a mark of honor and sportsmanship to suffer a bad call, secure in the knowledge that if you were better, it would all average out in the end. That’s what we tell the boys playing little league as part of the character building experience sports can be, but the “men” need state of the art technology or they pitch a fit, sort of like that kid in the school yard who runs home and gets his Mommy to make the other boys say he was safe and not out. There used to be just one in every school yard, but the professionals are all instant replay official Momma’s boys, or Nanny’s boys. The game is removed one more step from the school yard, and boys are encouraged to stay boys long after puberty.

Ironically, men in sports so poorly represent traditional manhood that the women are more “macho.”  There is a sense in which macho is the wrong word, a mistake of our paternal language. Women certainly in their own right can be mature or immature; it just doesn’t jump out at you so much because so few women have demonstrated the profound stupidity that is the province of the professional male athlete.

Back to the Olympics, irony on ice stretches far past hockey as well. Our speed skaters are having an open feud in the media, and it is in a sense the ultimate irony. In different words, each accuses the other of not being a team player. They take their case not to the team, coach, or each other, but to the international media at a press conference. It seems they are both right; neither one of them is a team player. All you can say is that boys will be boys. Too bad we sent them to play in a man’s event, no Nannies allowed.  

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