Sports (2016) Sports / Edited by David Taras and Christopher Waddell
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HOW CANADIANS COMMUNICATE V HOW CANADIANS COMMUNICATE V Edited by David Taras and Christopher Waddell Copyright © 2016 David Taras and Christopher Waddell Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-77199-007-3 (pbk.) 978-1-77199-008-0 (PDF) 978-1-77199-009-7 (epub) doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771990073.01 Cover design by Natalie Olsen, Kisscut Design Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printers Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Sports (2016) Sports / edited by David Taras and Christopher Waddell. (How Canadians communicate ; V) This volume emerged from a conference that was part of the How Canadians Communicate series of conferences held in Banff in October 2012. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Mass media and sports—Canada. 2. Sports—Social aspects—Canada. I. Taras, David, 1950-, author, editor II. Waddell, Christopher Robb, author, editor III. Title. IV. Series: How Canadians communicate (Series) ; 5 GV742.S66 2016 070.4'497960971 C2015-904359-X C2015-904360-3 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CFB) for our publishing activities. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution– Noncommercial–NoDerivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. CONTENTS Power Plays: Communication and Control in Canadian Sports 3 David Taras pART i The Medium Is the Money 1 Troubles in the Toy Department: Conflicts of Interest, the Triumph of Trivia, and the Changing Face of Sports Journalism 31 Roy MacGregor 2 The Hall of Mirrors 41 Christopher Waddell 3 The End of CBC Sports? 55 Jay Scherer 4 Playing Make-Believe: How Fantasy Leagues Have Changed Sports 79 Derrick Newman pART ii Searching for Heroes in the New Media World 5 Questioning Assumptions: A Comparison of Canadian and American University Sports 95 Duane Bratt 6 Of Home Teams and Visiting Players: Imports and Substitutions in Canadian Professional Sports 117 Ira Wagman 7 The Changing World of Sports in Québec 137 André Richelieu 8 The Olympics as an Iconic Event: The Question of National Unity and the Vancouver 2010 Games 157 Harry Hiller 9 Debating Disability: Paralympic Athletes and the Media 175 David Legg pART iIi Hockey Night in Canada 10 Hockey, Concussions, and the Media 195 Tom Maloney 11 The Hockey Calgary Body-Checking Vote: Colliding Views 209 Janice Paskey 12 Goodbye, Gordie Howe: Sport Participation and Class Inequality in the “Pay for Play” Society 223 Richard Gruneau 13 Cultivating Distinction Through Hockey as Commodity 247 Peter Zuurbier 14 Hockey Art as Visual Communication: Insights from Oral Culture 267 Chaseten Remillard pART iV Drugs, Violence, and Death 15 The Kayfabe Era: Early Professional Wrestling in Canada 285 Glenn Ruhl 16 “The UFC Is Selling Wolf Tickets”: Sport and Fiction in the Ultimate Fighting Championship 303 Bart Beaty 17 On the Temptations of Doping: Moral Relativism and the Tour de France 319 Angela J. Schneider 18 An Insider’s Look at the Vancouver 2010 Luge Tragedy 341 Regan Lauscher 19 Communicating Tragedy: The Death of Nodar Kumaritashvili at the Vancouver Olympics 349 Jeremy Berry 20 The Half a Mile of Heaven’s Gate 361 Aritha van Herk List of Contributors 377 Index 381 HOW CANADIANS COMMUNICATE V POWER PLAYS Communication and Control in Canadian Sports David Taras To borrow a phrase from Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, sports are “more than just games.”1 Sports are about identity and belonging, about our place in the world and how we see ourselves. Over the past decade, the Canadian sports landscape has been dramatically transformed. We have seen the merger of “big media” and “big sports,” deepening globalization, a new wave of hyper-commercialism, the emer- gence of digital media as a mainstay of sports journalism, increased worries about concussions and brain injuries, and a fierce national debate about hitting and fight- ing in hockey. At the same time, active participation in sports is plummeting. For a variety of reasons, fewer young Canadians are lacing on skates, doing lengths at the pool, kicking a ball or swinging for the fences, or experiencing the thrill of compe- tition. As the experience of playing sports grows increasingly remote, sports cul- ture is more and more about our experience as fans—an experience that is largely shaped and defined by the media. In this seismic shift, a great deal of the action is taking place far from the ice or the base paths. We are in the midst of a major battle by giant media conglomerates for control over sports entertainment. Worried that their cable empires will crumble under pressure from over-the-top broadcasters such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, as well as from online piracy, companies such as Bell and Rogers believe that control over live content, specifically sports, will prevent the ravages of “cord cutting.” They also want to win the battle to broadcast games directly to phones and other mobile devices. Since sports programming draws the largest audiences, with viewers who are more likely to watch games to the very end as well as to watch ads, the stakes are enormous. As media conglomerates acquire ownership of sports teams, however, concerns have been raised about journalistic freedom, conflicts of interest, 3 doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771990073.01 as well as the creation of a self-perpetuating sports machine that endlessly promotes its own products. With so much at stake, the spin never stops. But the battle over sports is also about governments and the degree to which taxpayers are willing to support elite athletes, pay for new arenas, stadiums, and recreation centres, and maintain a prominent role in sports for the public broad- caster, CBC/Radio-Canada. More critically, however, the battle is over the health of our population, the values that permeate our society, and the symbols that domin- ate Canadian life. In one way or another, each of the chapters in this book examines how contests for power and control play out in the domain of sports. Why Sports Matters Sports are being altered by new developments that are changing the shape of play, the standards of athletic achievement, and the fan experience. Most fundamentally, the ways in which people communicate about sports and participate in the sports spectacle are being transformed. Inevitably, in Canada, hockey is the fulcrum of these changes. Fans attending a game fifty years ago would have had roughly the same experience inside the arena as fans do today—minus the jumbotrons, instant replays, rock music, and players clad in garb that makes them look like extras from Road Warrior. They would have been drawn to the game by the tribal loyalties of their city and region, including those based on religion and language—as, for example, when the legendary Montreal Canadiens faced off against their archrivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs. They would have gone to the game to see the great stars of their day—the Gordie Howes and Rocket Richards—and to watch a thrilling display of manhood, action, and fury. The following morning, they would have read about the game and viewed photos of the action in newspapers, heard the scores and descriptions of the game on radio, and watched film of the goals later that night on television. And yet, if these fans could be transported to the present day, much of what they would see and experience would come as a shock. They would suddenly find themselves immersed in a dazzling world of multi-media platforms—a bewilder- ing kaleidoscope of all-sports channels, league and team channels and websites, blogs, apps, national radio shows, YouTube videos, fantasy leagues, video games, and countless magazines, to say nothing of Facebook sites and tweets by coaches, players, and reporters. They would be stunned to discover websites such as NHL. com, where all of the information that they might conceivably have amassed in a lifetime of following hockey is instantly available. They would also be amazed by a 4 David Taras doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771990073.01 sports culture that never stops, that’s always in forward motion, and that includes millions of fans communicating with each other. Fifty years ago, communications media were defined and limited by a specific technology. Newspapers competed against other newspapers, television networks against television networks, and radio programs against radio programs. Fans from that era could not easily have imagined a digital universe in which every medium has merged with every other medium and in effect become every other medium. They would be fascinated by smartphones, for example, which are not merely tele- phones but a gateway to newspapers and magazines, books, television program- ming, live messaging, and a seemingly infinite array of websites. Content is thus no longer bound by technological platform: everything is everywhere. They might also be surprised to discover that, as mentioned above, two major Canadian media conglomerates, Bell Canada and Rogers, now own sports franchises and, through their multiple media outlets and bundled content, compete for control over the dissemination of sports entertainment. Our time travellers would be in for another shock. NHL teams, for example, are now populated by Swedes, Russians, a large influx of Americans, Czechs, Finns, and others, and Canadians are not necessarily the best players—nor is it clear that hockey is still somehow “our” game.