Being a Sports Fan Can Be Healing During Difficult Times

​Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
April 28, 2022

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I have a confession to make.

I spend endless hours reading about and watching both professional and amateur sports, men and women.

Other people may have other weaknesses; mine is a long-standing one, from childhood. It leads almost nowhere, except to a state of permanent fandom, which consists of hope, giddiness, painful defeats, (quickly forgotten) and then renewed hope. Year after year, season after season, a true addiction.

I’m not so captivated that I’d buy or wear any team’s bling, but I might fly a car flag should any one of my teams be in a real playoff.

It started when I was growing up in Kirkland Lake in the 1950's, a rink rat at the local arena, a radio listener on Saturday nights to Foster Hewitt, a schoolroom shared with Dick Duff and Ralph Backstrom.

I watch and like all sports, even cricket. When I lived in the West Indies, I went to Sabina Park with a true believer and he taught me the finer points. I especially liked the tea break. I also saw in person the “Rawalpindi Express,” a certain Pakistani bowler who threw at 100 miles per hour.

I understand curling. I know what “hurry hard” means. I also like football (soccer) and go so far as to follow the Bundesliga from Europe, because a grandson is a Bayern Munich follower. And Alphonso Davies plays there. I happen to think some of the best writing in Canadian newspapers is from sports writers such as Cathal Kelly and Mike Davies.

The Olympics are for me a two-week holiday every two years. The Canadian junior hockey tournament makes Christmas holidays special.

So, I can hold my own in chatter about sports at morning coffee break or help my Trivial Pursuit team when it comes to the sports category. That always gave me a certain cachet with the teenage boys I taught at St. Peter. I could ask them, sotto voce, “See the game last night?”

They knew my antipathy to Don Cherry, and one day went to a sports store and got a life-sized cardboard cutout of Don for the classroom. “That can stay,” I said, “but at the beginning of every class you have to turn him to face the wall.” They did that all year.

My one Raptors game in person was the night that Demar DeRozan scored 49 points. I also remember that the beer was $12 a pop.

I tend to trust sports fans, especially if they cheer for Canadian teams, although I understand loyalty to the Bruins from Maritimers. But an attachment to a team from Arizona or Florida, no, no.

I have three sons living in all parts of this country and they keep me on my toes, because although they all play beer-league hockey once a week, they cheer on different teams: the Oilers, the Habs and the Leafs. Isn’t there a radio station, AM 590, “All Leafs All the Time?”

These sons have also taken an interest in rowing, Ultimate Frisbee and Brazilian jiu jitsu. See how broadening a passion for sports can be to your life?

Grandchildren aren’t so much into the NHL (the league better take notice of that), but they avidly follow men’s and women’s national soccer. I know Christine Sinclair and Atiba Hutchison and John Herdman. I’ve had a selfie taken with Diana Matheson.

Newer sports, though, have me baffled me: all those pipe things. Give me fast and straight. Remember, Damian Warner of London, Ontario is, by winning the pentathlon, the world’s greatest athlete.

Is there anything more amusing than the irrepressible Vladimir Guerrero of the Blue Jays prancing in a corner of the dugout called, for its Spanish speakers, the “barrio?” My favorite announcers are Jennifer Botterill and Joe Siddall.

Though others may have seen hundreds of movies on Netflix, watching sports has literally brought me through the pandemic, and been a bond of unity with far-flung family.
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​​"Gleanings" is Rosemary Ganley's new book.  You can purchase directly from the author at  rganley209@gmail.com or from >Amazon<

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