Wednesday 15 June 2011

Canadian Identity



Nothing brings out the beast in Canadians like a final challenge between a Canadian and an American hockey team. This year is no different with the final game for the Stanley Cup being played tonight between the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks. The video above is being shown on Canadian TV channels. How many stereotypes can you identify in the clip? They left out French unfortunately  since the country is bilingual except for the North West territories which have eleven official languages - Chipewyann, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tłįch.  

  The same thing happened in Buffalo, New York during the Junior World Hockey championships in January of this year.  The Buffalo Evening News had a lot to say about it:

“It is a good thing that the World Junior hockey tournament did not last any longer. Another week and we might have had a border war.

Even as it was, I think we saw a different side of the normally placid, polite, patient good neighbors we thought we knew. Buffalo was invaded by a sea of red. The tide has receded, leaving behind some hard feelings, shattered stereotypes and an aftertaste as bad as the backwash from a warm Molson.

Whatever happened to the polite, humble, rule-respecting folks we thought we knew? Where were the civic-minded citizens who dutifully wait at the street corner when the traffic light is red, even when no cars are coming? Wherever you are, we want you back.”

  Do any of you cultural identity experts have an analysis?

1 comment:

  1. We'll give them stereotypically nice Canadians when they finally come through on the promise to make the US "the land of the free" rather than the land of the brainwashed and enslaved by Walmart.

    Tit for tat, I say.

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