It’s official: a few of our older hockey greats can read the puck but can’t read the room.
We’re all in on defending Canada these days, and we’re in no mood for any real or perceived lack of enthusiasm from last century’s stars.
After a blissful news-free weekend spent with my nose buried in a novel about a lady pirate1 and my fingers coated in Hawkins Cheezie dust, I woke up to a country embroiled in outrage over...Wayne Gretzky.
Why? It’s not that I’m not disgusted with him for his silence on the sanctity of Canada’s borders; it’s that in the grand scheme of things, he’s not important.
The poor guy can’t even speak for himself, having dispatched Bobby Orr to defend him in the pages of the Toronto Sun.2
That shouldn’t be rage-inducing. That’s just sad.
For those who are outraged, either at or on behalf of our former Team Canada greats, we need to see this story for what it is: old men clinging to glories from another century.
Gretzky and Orr are not present because they are our past.
Set down your outrage. Do not waste this glorious energy that has been unleashed by the turning of world events on side battles and distractions.
We have work to do to prepare ourselves, our families and our communities for what lies in front of us.
We may be gung-ho right now, but the next chapter in Canada’s history will be neither easy nor quick.
Companies are already announcing layoffs,3 we are being warned that increasing pan-Canadian trade will be difficult4 and it’s one thing to say we’re going to build pipelines, but quite another to make it happen.5 Even with the friendliest of regulatory environments, it will be years before Fort Mac’s crude flows toward Saint John Harbour.
Which is why, if you do anything at all it should be this: don’t be hatin’.
I’m borrowing those words from George Mumford,6 the sports psychologist and mental skills coach currently in his second year with the Edmonton Oilers and Team Canada’s present superstar Connor McDavid.7
I’ve been listening to Mumford for years courtesy of my favourite mindfulness app and often return to Mumford’s ‘Don’t be Hatin’ video to help me stay focused when my mind and my stomach start to clench, and I feel my anger rising.
That’s when Mumford reminds me to stop and consider how I will martial all this energy. Where will I direct it?
Am I to hit back at the people or situations that have caused this emotional surge I feel, or do I redirect it towards creating a better, different outcome?
