I’m sorry to start an off with a piece of such unsavory news, but it’s best to say quickly, like tearing off a Band-Aid. We live in a totalitarian state. I know this is depressing to hear, especially since you planned on thinking freely later this afternoon, but the fact is we live in a state where the minds of its citizenry have been hopelessly and irreversibly brainwashed. You might ask who the culprit of this indoctrination is. Is it a sinister U.S. government with plans to crush Wikileaks and implement dastardly legislation like SOPA? Or perhaps an evil corporation like Monsanto somehow putting brain altering chemicals in our drinking water?
No, I’m afraid the best brainwasher is the one you suspect least of all: it’s the institution of hockey in Canadian culture. That’s right, if you enjoy watching hockey then it’s quite likely you’ve been indoctrinated and may suffer from some form of permanent brain damage. The first step to recovery is accepting your beliefs are false. Try repeating in your head, “Hockey is boring and only crazy people enjoy it”, until you feel the delusion leave your mind.
You may not want to hear this, but living in a society of mass sports is really no different than living in Nazi Germany; in fact, both ideologies actually had similar beginnings. Mass sports came about in Europe and North America in the early 20th century as a response to fears that society was becoming weak and feminized. Men felt the need to prove their masculinity and increasingly began watching sports like hockey.
Like the Nazi, the hockey fan is driven by his desire to preserve his masculinity and to create a society of new-men: emotionless, aggressive, and able to take a puck in the grapes without as much so a grimace.
Like any successful totalitarian ideology, the hockey team begins by attacking the minds of the young. Children are swiftly taken from their mothers and their Pokemon and forced into strict, early morning hockey practices where they are taught to love the hockey team like a family. They are given trading cards to collect and when they get home, they watch hockey on the television with their parents. They wear identical uniforms to remove their individuality and liken themselves to a cog in the machine. Uniqueness is considered contrary to the hockey doctrine. I don’t think there is much doubt regarding the similarities between Tim Bits Hockey and the Hitler Youth.
Once grown up, hockey fans serve one god and one god only: hockey. Always at war, these militarists are easily stirred into a hateful fervor against the enemy, whoever that may be. Like in George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the state continually switches between which nations it is at war with, the hockey team is always fighting a different opponent. This keeps hockey fans in a state of perpetual fear and renders them incapable of critical thinking. In Orwell’s book, citizens practice the act of “doublethink”, which allows a person to both love and hate Big Brother. Canucks fans will recognise this practice with their attitude toward the team’s bi-polar goalie, Roberto Luongo.
The Mass Sports ideology has eyes and ears everywhere. If a citizen discovers a subversive element in their midst, that person is rounded up and dealt with severely. Like in Nazi Germany, the Mass Sports ideology gathers supporters in the beer halls to watch the games. If you happen to be an innocent patron simply there to get your drank on, you must suffer the noises of the unruly crowd or else leave the pub and risk not getting sufficiently slizzered. Like the Nazis, the hockey fans occasionally arrange a putsch where they exit the beer hall and try to violently overthrow the municipal government. Vancouver residents recently witnessed an attempt at a coup d’état last spring.
Of course, all authoritarian governments employ the use of slogans and imagery to stir the public into a rage, and the Mass Sports culture is not different. While the Nazis had the black eagle, the Canucks have the killer whale. The Leninists declared “Peace, Land, and Bread” while the Canucks yell “Go, Canucks, Go”. The parallels are uncanny.
Canadians are in the grip of an extreme regime — if you question the authority, you are ostracised and outcast, or worse. Vancouverites must find the courage to throw off the shackles of oppression and free their minds from hockey’s insidious grip. Perhaps only then can we begin to heal as a nation and as a people.
