Happy Canada Day!

I was looking through my photos for an appropriate one to post for Canada Day when I came across this one. It’s a bit dated, but I’m thinking it works, this year in particular.

Why, you might ask?

Because our country has been hockey mad for the past two months.

Just over a week ago (why does it feel so much longer?), a German friend and I were chatting back and forth by email. He mentioned that Euro 2024 (which Germany is hosting this summer) was dominating their lives at the moment — had I heard about it?

I had, I replied, and then I invited him to visit me in 2026, when Vancouver will be hosting seven games of the FIFA World Cup.

Then I wrote this: 

The big game that Canada is focused on happens tomorrow. Hockey (or ice hockey, as you call it). The Stanley Cup playoffs involve four rounds of best-of-seven games. Tomorrow is Game 7 of the final round, with the team from Edmonton playing a team from Florida. Canada has not won the Stanley Cup in 31 years. If Edmonton is able to win tomorrow, this country will lose its mind.

Sadly, our email chat ends with this brief message from me the following morning: 

HEARTBREAK ACROSS CANADA. ☹

I’m never sure if my non-Canadian friends understand how much hockey is part of our national identify. It was certainly clear to me last week. The entire country had hopped on the bandwagon — even people who don’t care about hockey were making plans to watch the game.

It reminded me of another hockey game that once gripped the country’s attention: the Men’s Hockey Gold Medal game during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. When Canada pulled off a win against the United States, the biggest-ever block party took over Vancouver’s downtown core.

I took this photo during those same Olympics. It’s from a hockey game between Germany and Canada, which could in no way be considered a nail-biter — Canada trounced Germany 8 to 2 — but it was still electric inside the arena and so much fun to be there.

If Edmonton had won the Stanley Cup this year, you can be sure it would be part of the Canada Day celebrations somehow somewhere today. But, even without the Cup, we can still celebrate the fact that we got to watch some really good hockey.

And, of course, there’s always next year.