#I salute you professional#
I don’t say this because I dislike professional sport.
While people still get hurt on the ice at hockey games, on the turf at football games and in the beer-soaked stands at European soccer matches, the collective madness that takes over professional-sport audiences doesn’t look and feel much different than the fervour found at an old military rally. In the modern context, organized sport serves as a relatively bloodless surrogate for actual war.
#I salute you full#
But you don’t need to be overly perceptive to find similarities between a stadium full of people cheering on a team and a medieval square full of soldiers, with cheering patriots at their side or a Soviet-era plaza full of missiles rolling by carefully choreographed crowds.
#I salute you pro#
I’m not suggesting warfare evolved directly into pro sport. In the days of city states and feudal fiefdoms, peasants living under the euphemistic “protection” of armed militias hoped “their guys” would go out and beat “the other guys” to prevent their hamlets or villages from being ransacked and pillaged and women raped by strangers who tended to behave rather badly when they were on the road. That’s because professional sport has always served as a proxy for the warfare that used to be a more commonplace aspect of Western society.Īt the risk of simplifying history to cartoonish proportions, there may not be much of a distinction between warfare and organized sport, if you go back far enough. Over the past week, many Winnipeg hockey fans have expressed similar opinions, to the point where I’m confident a significant minority of Jets supporters are uncomfortable with the logo’s military provenance.īut at the risk of once again disappointing the pacifists, I don’t understand the logic behind their discomfort. “It makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed.”
“I think it is one of the saddest events for our city in a long while,” he wrote. My old pal went on to compare the unveiling of the Jets’ logo to a morality play, where hero yearns for something for years, only to be disappointed when the desired outcome actually happens. “It is a real letdown, perpetuates a right-wing and frankly un-Canadian ideology introduced to the game by (Stephen) Harper and (Don) Cherry and disgraces the character of our city.” “(But) the militarization of a sports team is a terrible idea, especially in a city that, for example, contains more Mennonites than military members. “Sure, it is a handsome design,” wrote a longtime acquaintance who proudly calls himself a pacifist. Would the notion of a fighter jet on the Jets logo have upset a pacifist like J.S. Last week, when I wrote a column praising the simplicity of the logo’s design, some readers were disappointed I didn’t take umbrage to the military association. The stylized roundel that serves as the Winnipeg Jets’ new logo has sparked the biggest debate over design in this city since utilitarian critics heaped abuse upon Esplanade Riel, the pointy pedestrian bridge whose now-beloved image is synonymous with Winnipeg itself. This article was published (4097 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.Īt the risk of retrieving the rotted remains of a horse from the glue factory just to bash it again, it’s pretty safe to say Winnipeg is still digesting its hockey team’s air force-inspired emblem.
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