For this piece, my first published on Habs Eyes on the Prize, I wrote about three public figures who spend their leisure time tweeting about hockey and the Montreal Canadiens in particular. I caught up to Andrew Coyne, Les Perreaux, and Emmett Macfarlane during the 2014 NHL playoffs. Each was paying attention to the exciting run the Habs managed to put together to get to the Eastern Conference Finals. You can view the original piece here.
The Unexpected Habs Fanatics
While the real action is undoubtedly on the ice, we’ve heard quite a bit about Habs fans during these playoffs.
We've read about the religious fervour with which expatriate believers unite around the Montreal Canadiens. We've learned that the superstitions and neuroses that we thought to be unique to our own living rooms are actually universal features of the game-day experiences of fellow members of Habs nation. Finally, we've seen how the traditionally face-to-face act of collectively cheering on the CH is now increasingly practiced in digital space.
Forgive Habs fans if they've been panicking in this third round series against the New York Rangers, but even with tensions running high, it's been a thrill.
Now, there's nothing unusual
about fans doing fairly typical fan things. But, as the Habs have gone
deeper into this year's playoffs, I've also noticed unexpected
partisanship emerging around me. From the Coordinator of my department
who's closing e-mails with "Go Habs Go," to the Humanities professor
who's talked my ear off about Thomas Vanek, people who normally shy away from the hype have exposed themselves as full-blown boosters.
I have many academic friends
who'll keep their hockey passion on the down low out of a sense that
sports is not serious compared the real life topics we're supposed to be
dealing with in higher education. But, in light of the numerous Habs
love reveals I've witnessed in recent weeks, I decided to explore this
question in a little more detail.
In the age of Twitter, it's
easy to locate people with particular interests, and it's from my own
feed that I drew a sample of hockey fans with whom to talk. Similar to
the normally closeted Habs devotees at my work, these folks address
important social issues in their professional lives. Yet, they've also
stood out for their enthusiastic hockey tweeting during the playoffs. I
turn to them to explore the phenomenon of the unexpected Habs fanatic.
Readers of Andrew Coyne
know that the Postmedia national affairs columnist is deeply engaged in
Canadian politics. Those who follow him on Twitter also know that
Coyne's not shy about defending the positions he takes against those who
come after him. Though he admits he'd rather be chatting with those he
knows personally, Coyne explains why he'll go back and forth with his
critics on Twitter.
"People don't always get your
point," Coyne said. "People tend to believe what they want to believe,
but every now and then you run into somebody who you're able to disabuse
of whatever preconceptions they had about either me or about the
column. [Twitter's] useful sometimes to know how you're being
perceived."
Debating Justin Trudeau's
policy on whether Liberal MPs can vote their conscience in parliament on
abortion is one thing, but trolling the proponents of advanced
statistical analysis in hockey on Twitter is something else entirely.
Then there's the commentary he provides on the Habs' ups and downs in
the playoffs. Why is a prominent political commentator taking time out
of his busy schedule to do that? Coyne explains how tweeting his hockey
interest is a welcome release from writing about the big issues of the
day.
"It allows you to show a
different side of yourself," Coyne said. "There are bounds of tastes
that apply to newspapers that are a little looser on Twitter. You might
throw in a swearword that you wouldn't in a newspaper. It seems to be an
understood norm of the place, and that can encourage a breezy
informality. And, [hockey] lends itself to that."
Coyne was a Winnipeg Jets fan growing up. As the only Canadian team in the playoffs, Coyne says he's solidly behind the Montreal Canadiens.
Supporting his notion that
political writers tend to enjoy sports, Coyne wasn't the only nationally
published journalist I was able to find who's been revealing affection
for the Habs via Twitter during these playoffs.
In the recent Quebec election, Les Perreaux,
a news reporter for the Globe and Mail, was assigned the task of live
tweeting the second leaders debate. Leading up to the event, Perreaux
provided historical context by supplying 140 character highlights of
debates from the 2012 election. That his replay resembled TSN's routine
of showing the previous year's Grey Cup on the afternoon of the current
year's championship game is no coincidence. Like Andrew Coyne, Perreaux
enjoys alternating between news and sports in his public musings on
Twitter. Hockey and the Habs make regular appearances.
"Hockey is an area I feel
pretty free to say what I think," Perreaux said. "I don't have to have
evidence that the Habs stink to say, ‘the Habs stink,' whereas before I
can say Philippe Couillard stinks, I better have pretty solid reasoning
to say it. Sport is a distraction, a leisure activity, a spectacle, and
for someone in my job, it's a fun area to talk about."
Before he began to use Twitter
to discuss issues he's reporting on, hockey was the subject Perreaux
tweeted about most frequently. And while he thinks that too many people
tweeting the exact same things during games can ruin interactions,
Perreaux's personal investment in the Habs playoff fortunes and his work
duties keep him involved.
"I will continue to observe
play and games, and [tweet] things that happen on the ice," Perreaux
said. "If the Habs continue on a run, there's going to be stories we
have to do outside the actual games, [like] the buzz in the city or Stanley Cup
fever. If they get to the final, we'll be doing stories everyday, so
I'll be using twitter for that sort of hybrid news-sports."
It might not be all that
surprising to find Canadian columnists and journalists publicly
commenting on the Stanley Cup playoffs as part of their chronicling of
current events. But, can the same be expected of folks in the ivory
tower? Are my colleagues and their coming out stories an aberration or
are many scholars experiencing & expressing a similar latent Habs
fever? Twitter supplied me with an answer.
I first learned about Emmett Macfarlane
due to the fact that his Habs tweets would frequently appear in my
Twitter timeline on game nights during the regular season. Macfarlane,
an Assistant Professor of political science at the University of
Waterloo, studies the Supreme Court of Canada, and also writes on
politics for Maclean's and the Globe and Mail. A regular participant in
Twitter discussions with a network of political journalists and
academics, Macfarlane won't hesitate to express his adoration for the
Habs right in the middle of the high-flying conversation.
"I tweet about [hockey]
because it's one of the things I'm passionate about," Macfarlane said.
"Most of my tweeting is during a game, particularly big games, like in
the playoffs. It's kind of neat to connect to other Habs fans online, or
to get into debates with people who like other teams. A lot of the
people in my twitter feed are tweeting about the game, and it's a shared
experience in that way."
It's refreshing to hear a
fellow academic be as unabashedly enthusiastic about a sports team as he
is about the politics he studies, but is there no hesitation to mash
the Montreal Canadiens with the Canadian Constitution in such a public
manner? Macfarlane makes the balance work.
"I'm much more inappropriate
when I'm talking about hockey," said Macfarlane. "There are people in
academia who are conservative about seeing someone swearing or making
stupid jokes about other teams. They regard it as wholly inappropriate,
and even something that can damage your professional reputation. I don't
personally buy into that. I am a fan of hockey, so I behave as a fan. I
will literally tweet ‘YAAAH' when there's a goal, as if this is a
remotely an intelligent thing to do. But, it's something that's one of
my passions, so I enjoy engaging in that way."
In their public expressions
then, all three unexpected Habs fanatics transition between the serious
content of their day jobs and the joy that comes from following their
sport. But, beyond tweeting the Habs, I also wondered what they thought
about hockey's place in Canada more generally. Isn't hockey really just a
diversion? Or, is it truly as vital to our nation as the CBC and Prime
Minister Harper would have us believe it to be? These observers and
storytellers of the national scene are in a perfect position to comment.
Though he certainly sees
crossovers between hockey and real life affairs, Les Perreaux mostly
views hockey as a distraction with limited societal stakes. Taking a
different tack, Macfarlane and Coyne not only respect hockey's value to
Canadian society, but they also suggest that its big picture
significance is partially responsible for drawing them in.
"I think we're a little bit
insecure about what makes Canada distinct," Macfarlane said. "We do so
much comparing of ourselves to the United States, so we point to things
like universal healthcare or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as
things that make Canada special. I would put hockey in that class of
things. In some ways it's analogous to what baseball is to Americans,
but in other ways it's also reflective of us being a winter nation, a
northern country. We do hold it in pride of place in that sort of
cultural perspective."
While Macfarlane acknowledges
that the Conservative Party has invested a lot in trying to leverage
hockey into political gains, he also maintains that the sport is a
legitimate and needed marker of Canadian identity.
Andrew Coyne agrees that
hockey's expressive of Canadian culture, and he offers an inspiring take
with which many of us would no doubt agree.
"Hockey crosses every boundary
of identity politics," Coyne said. "All the supposedly immutable
differences and vast gulfs that are supposed to separate the different
languages, or the different races, or even the different genders, all of
those get blown apart, and people just find a certain unity just
playing a game for fun. That's a wonderful and sacred thing and, at its
best, the game really does bring people together."
Coyne recognizes hockey's role
as a great social unifier. Yet, true to his reputation as a bit of a
contrarian, Coyne offers an additional view of the sport's importance in
forcing Canadians to re-evaluate taken for granted views of their own
historical and cultural sensibilities.
"It is not the peaceable
kingdom caring sharing type of sport, it's just not in its nature,"
Coyne said. "When you see the game of hockey, you see a more accurate
picture of what this country has been than a lot of the nationalist
mythmakers would allow. It is violent, individualistic, spontaneous,
freewheeling. We've colonized large sections of America with it, so the
whole argument of cultural imperialism gets turned on its head. That's
probably part of what appeals to me about it, [and] there's a part of me
that finds that ruggedness of our forebears something to learn from."
It's clear that even
unexpected Habs fanatics enjoy publicly supporting their team, and that
they recognize varying degrees of hockey's social value, but one final
serious matter requires attention.
Can the Montreal Canadiens actually
win this year's Stanley Cup?
"The stats people would say
that Montreal is the odd man out amongst the last four teams in the
sense that they were the least effective at controlling the puck all
season long," Coyne said. "But, the fact that they've come this far
shows that maybe statistics don't explain everything, and that
intangible things like emotions and teams playing above themselves can
also kick in."
Coyne's foray into the
language and logic of fancy stats is impressive, but his prediction is
basically a hedge. He's not alone in stopping just short of a clear
declaration.
"My ability to predict hockey
is much worse than my ability to predict what the Supreme Court will do,
and I'm often wrong about what the Supreme Court will do," Macfarlane
said. "I was nervous going in to [the Rangers] series, but I'm starting
to feel that something special's going to happen this year. The Rangers
are a good team, but I think the Canadiens match up well against them."
And, despite being closest to the ground in Montreal, Les Perreaux goes no farther than the others.
"I honestly don't know what's
going to happen," Perreaux said. "Hockey's a weird sport. The stats guys
are getting a bigger and bigger presence in how hockey's analyzed, but
hockey has to be the most unpredictable sport. Anything can happen. To
me, that's the crazy thing about hockey."
So, despite all their
collective knowledge and opinions regarding the most important
happenings in the country, the unexpected Habs fanatics' predictions
about their team are surprisingly non-committal. Thus, even taking the
highly serious nature of their professional engagements into account,
maybe Coyne, Perreaux, and Macfarlane are not so different from fans
like you and me.
"After the win over Boston, I
suddenly [became] very excited," Macfarlane said. "But, as a Habs fan,
being excited just makes you nervous. Are you getting your hopes up only
to be crushed? It very much is a completely irrational approach to
assessing these things as a fan I think."
Whether our Habs fanaticism is
expected or not, it's the irrationality of it all that helps makes the
ride so worth it for all of us.
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