Parshat Ki Tissa – March 5/6

Purim of Gold

I fully agree it was rude of me not to greet our guests. After all, I was the one who invited them and yet I would not even come out to welcome them to our home for the Purim Seudah, the festive meal of the holiday. But they fully understood; it was my curse, let's say. A mishigus that could not be helped.

Some of them even ventured into the room where I was holed up and upon entering they were quickly told they were not allowed to talk. They could watch and react but they could not speak - not to each other and certainly not to me. Some tried to come into the room but I quickly shooed them away knowing they could not possibly understand the enormity of the moment. In fact, I told those who dared to enter that they must treat this as if they were in shul during the silent meditation, the Amidah - the most important part of the prayer service. They had to be in complete and utter silence and not distract me during this most holy time. There was tension in the air which was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

I speak, of course, of the Gold medal game between the United States and Canada that took place this past Sunday afternoon on Purim, on the final day of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
 
The evening before, on Saturday night, in front of 150 people who came to Aish to hear the Megillah, I introduced the reading by stating that so often the Jewish people were subjected to much greater powers and that we have beaten and vanquished them. I then drew a parallel and said that similarly, Canada - the much smaller country and power - will vanquish the Americans. I was roundly booed louder than Haman was that night. When I tried to start a CAN-A-DA chant, it immediately turned into a chant for U-S-A. But I expected that. I kept silent before the erring masses and decided that I would allow history to unfold on its own without my prophetic pronouncements.

When it comes to hockey, Americans just don't get it. Not merely that they don't like the sport relative to other sports, which happens to be true, but that they don't get the whole idea of how one specific past-time can be so all consuming for a nation. They have no notion of how one particular sport can be so imbued with a national identity. But that is ok and I understand why they do not, cannot appreciate this (nebach). In the United States there is basketball and college basketball; football and college football; baseball and college baseball; NASCAR, caged wrestling, Poker and so many other sports competing with one another. And while it is true that the NFL is the king of sports, even its sway and ability to command attention is watered down with so many other activities grabbing the spotlight.
 
Not so in the great white north.

Say, or better, joke what you will about curling, in truth I don't remember anyone I grew up with ever talking about or giving a hoot about it.(Yes I have curled once or twice, they took us in junior high school, against our will like so many other activities.) And yes, we had our two World Series with the Toronto Blue Jays, and the CFL is like high school football, and my brother tells me that Toronto has a professional basketball team - but all of it does not come anywhere near to what hockey means to Canadians.

As has been reported repeatedly in the press, the Canadian five dollar bill has this quote on the back:

The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church (read: cheder) and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink.

This is what we did as soon as we got home from school. Get  the sticks, get the net, get the tennis ball, get the Lefkos, the Pearls and Shimmy Goldlust (he of going outside shirtless in the freezing winter, Shimmy) and even our local tomboy, Debbie and let's get a game of hockey going. Our road-hockey team was the Searle Seals (named after the now defunct California and later Oakland Seals). Elliot Lefko was our promoter and arranged for games with neighbouring streets like the Cocksfield Canucks whom we beat 1-0. (I got into a fight in that game.) Even when the other kids were not around, out came the net and I would take practice shots on an empty goal and pretend I was Davey Keon winning the Stanley Cup in the seventh game - in overtime, of course.

Eighty percent of the entire country of Canada watched last week's game and they say that Canadians will forever remember where they were when Sid Crosby scored at 7:40 into overtime. And so shall it be on every Purim henceforth. I will recount the glorious events of Esther and Mordechai, give gifts to the poor, share food baskets with friends, greet and host my guests for the Seudah - but also toast Sid the Kid for bringing home the gold to Canada in 2010. Because even though I have lived in these beautiful and wonderful United States of America for 21 years, and even though I lived in the holy land of Israel for nine years and let it define and shape so much of my life, and even though my wife is British and my children are American and my daily life is surrounded by Torah, Mitzvot and Judaism ... when all is said and done - when it comes to hockey, deep in the recesses of my heart and soul, I am Canadian. 

Hello out there, we're on the air, it's 'Hockey Night' tonight.
Tension grows, the whistle blows, and the puck goes down the ice.
The goalie jumps, and the players bump, and the fans all go insane.
Someone roars, "Bobby Sid Scores!" at the good ol' Hockey Game

OH! The good ol' Hockey game is the best game you can name.
And the best game you can name, is the good ol' Hockey game.

Now the final flick, of a hockey stick, and the one gigantic scream.
"The puck is in! The home team wins!" The good ol' hockey game.

             -Stompin Tom Connors (who lived on Searle for a short time)

Rabbi Tzvi Nightingale
Aish South Florida