OK, of course I watched Super Bowl XLIII, I mean it IS the Super Bowl. Plus, I needed something to watch while I was house cleaning – there’s a suspicious looking stain on the carpet! I was enjoying the festivities for surface Beavis and Butthead-esque reasons like, “huhuhuhuhuh his name is Colon huhuhuhuhuhuh he said ‘penetration’ huhuhuhuh.” I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see Bruce Springsteen’s nipple, though! Oooh and I saw a commercial for the new Fast and the Furious movie! Paul Walker! Yes, yes. Anyway, all the hype got me to thinking about sports fanatic culture (my favourite subject) and the differences between American and Canadian sports fans.

I started my day, like any good Canadian girl, checking in on one of the few NHL games scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday, Preds @ Oil. The Edmonton Oilers announced their unwavering support for the Arizona Cardinals, with several players gushing like school girls over Arizona quarterback and this year’s recipient of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, Kurt Warner. Don’t worry, I get it, Edmonton, he’s a bit of a Baldwin. (Oh, sidenote: Ryan Potulny is CUTE! How did he manage to fly under my radar when he was with Philadelphia?!)

Contrary to myth, Canadian sports fans do support the quote unquote “American sports.” Super Bowl fever is an intense part of mainstream popular culture in the land of ice and snow. The National Football League is taken more seriously than the Canadian Football League, and the Buffalo Bills get more in house support from citizens of Southern Ontario than both the Ti-cats and Argos. Living in Toronto, I know far too many “artsies.” You can’t get these people anywhere near any kind of sporting event during the regular season, but even they put their French berets away for one night of the year and get bloated on cheap beer and twenty-five cent wings – Super Bowl Sunday, not the Stanley Cup Finals as one might expect from a Canadian. I have my theories on this.

All Canadian sports writers have made the following statement at least once in their careers, and I shall be no exception, “In American sports markets, hockey ranks fourth in fan interest.” I definitely agree with this statement for the most part, but on rare occasions I am both surprised and delighted to see that hockey has clawed its way up a couple notches on the ladder. In Philadelphia, the Flyers rank third out of the four major sports teams, blowing pass the 76ers of the National Basketball Association. Of course baseball and football are still the number one priority in the city of brotherly love. Earlier this month, the Flyers did a promotional spot in support of the Eagles impressive playoff run. This prompted the entire arena to break out in song –some type of Eagles cheer. That’s something I’ve never seen before. Not even the playing of “O.K. Blue Jays!” on the morning announcements at school back in ’92 and ’93 compare to what I heard from the Philly fans that night.

I love meeting hockey fans! Marc W. is a lifetime Philadelphia Flyers fan who I had the great pleasure of meeting earlier this month at the Wachovia Center. He had a lot of really great stories about epic moments in hockey’s history in Philly, but one thing he told me stood out from the others. Marc was telling me that he didn’t like sports. This seemed odd considering he has been a season seat holder since the Flyers called the Spectrum home. He told me that often people would ask him if he saw such and such Phillies game or last night’s Eagles game, and he would always have the same answer,
“I don’t like sports!”
“But you’re such a huge Flyers fan,” they’d say.
“That’s different,” he’d reply, “Hockey is a lifestyle!”

I was stunned. This was the first time I had ever heard an American refer to hockey as a lifestyle. He understood exactly what hockey means to Canadians. Hockey isn’t a sport. It doesn’t end because the Cup has been won. We don’t forget about it in the off season, much to the dismay on the Blue Jays, no doubt. It is an omniscient. It is a national standard. It’s a lifestyle. And I don’t mean lifestyle in that burn out, lip packing, gong show saying way – though, I kind of do. I mean it in the way that hockey rinks across the country are in business year round, that guys know that they’ll get lucky if they tell a bar-chick that they play the game (at ANY level), and that July 1st isn’t just Canada Day, but the start of the NHL free agent frenzy.

The hockey lifestyle is the reason our artsies prefer to embrace the Super Bowl rather than the Stanley Cup. The artsies have to spend their whole lives trying to escape the unavoidable hockey presence. Super Bowl Sunday is the one major sports night of the year that they can truly enjoy because, for a few short hours, Canadian hockey fans put on a mask and forget about the upcoming trade deadline, the current NHL standings, and who they are at the core. Super Bowl Sunday is the Canadian hockey fans equivalent of Halloween. Of course, much like with Halloween, the party is over at dawn; and the sun brings with it a brand new day chalk full of hang overs, junk food remorse, and more puck than you can shake a stick at…well three games, but that’ll do.

P.S. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers for their sixth Super Bowl victory!