| Canadians are sports-mad - ice hockey, baseball and Canadian
football matches are all extremely popular, both the professional games,
and the intercollegiate competitions, the intensity of whose rivalries
are notorious. Interestingly, lacrosse is the "official" national sport
but, unsurprisingly, the unofficial one is ice hockey
Ice hockey
The sport that really ignites the passions of all Canadians is ice
hockey . With players hurtling around at nearly 50kph and the puck
clocking speeds of over 160kph, this would be a high-adrenaline sport
even without its relaxed attitude to combat on the rink - as an old
Canadian adage has it, "I went to see a fight and an ice-hockey game
broke out". Players, especially in the minor leagues, are as adept at a
right hook as they are at skating, and a few years ago the national team
waged such a battle against the Soviet Union that the fight only stopped
when officials turned all the lights off.
The North American National Hockey League (NHL) consists of thirty
teams, of which six are from Canada: the Montréal Canadiens, Ottawa
Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and the
Edmonton Oilers. There are two conferences - Western and Eastern - both
divided into two divisions. The Canadiens, Maple Leafs and the Senators
meet teams from Buffalo and Boston in the Northeast division of the
Eastern conference and the Flames, Oilers and Canucks face Colorado and
Minnesota in the Northwest division of the Western conference.
Teams have six players and perpetual substitutions are allowed during
the game - some players rarely spend more than a few minutes on the ice
at one time. There are three twenty-minute periods in a match, but the
clock is frequently stopped for a variety of reasons so play usually
goes on for three hours. Each team plays over eighty games a season ,
which lasts from October to May, and on alternate weeks will play two
and then three games. At the end of the season the top four teams in
each division go on into the play-offs for the Stanley Cup , ice
hockey's most prestigious title. The two most successful teams are the
Montréal Canadiens, who have won the Stanley Cup 23 times, and the
Toronto Maple Leafs, who have eleven victories under their belt.
Ticket prices range from around $15 for ordinary games to hundreds of
dollars for a Stanley Cup final - indeed, you can forget about getting
into this event unless you have high-level political or sporting
contacts. For nearly all matches you have to buy a ticket in advance.
Other than the NHL there are also numerous minor league clubs composed
of farm teams , so called because they supply the top clubs with talent.
Ontario and Québec both have their own minor leagues; the rest of the
country plays in the Western League, all with play-offs for a variety of
awards. For college hockey , the University of Toronto and York in
Toronto, Concordia in Montréal, St Mary's in Halifax and the University
of Alberta in Edmonton all have good teams.
Canadian football
Professional Canadian football , played under the aegis of the Canadian
Football League (CFL) , is largely overshadowed by the National Football
League in the US, chiefly because the best home-grown talent moves south
in search of better money while NFL castoffs move north to fill the
ranks. The two countries' football games vary slightly, but what
differences do exist tend to make the Canadian version more exciting. In
Canada the playing field is larger and there are twelve rather than
eleven players on each team . There is also one fewer down in a game -
ie after kickoff the attacking team has three, rather than four, chances
to move the ball forward ten yards and score a first down en route to a
touchdown . Different rules about the movement of players, and the
limited time allowed between plays, results in a faster-paced and
higher-scoring sport, in which ties are often decided in overtime or in
a dramatic final-minute surge.
Despite the sport's potential, the CFL has suffered a blight of media
and fan indifference, which has caused immense financial problems,
though recently the crisis seems to be easing, with high-profile
celebrity investment. The CFL has tried to expand into the US over the
past decade, but all the expansion teams folded at the end of the
1995/96 season. The season , played by two divisions of eight teams,
lasts from June to November, each team playing a match a week - 72
matches in all. At the end of the season are the play-offs, which
culminate with the hotly contested Grey Cup - which the Toronto
Argonauts have won twenty-one times, most recently in 1997. Tickets are
fairly easy to come by, except for important games, and vary in cost
from $20 to a Grey Cup final price of over $150.
Baseball
Baseball , with its relaxed summertime pace and byzantine rules, is
generally considered an exclusively American sport - despite the first
recorded game taking place in Beachville, Ontario. The Montréal Expos
and the Toronto Blue Jays perform in the US's two major baseball
leagues, the National and the American respectively. In 1992 and 1993,
the Toronto Blue Jays became national heroes when they won the World
Series twice in a row, beating America at their own game. Historically a
lowlier bunch, the Expos are now awaiting the completion of a new $200
million downtown stadium to boost ticket sales - due to open for the
2002 season. However, it was they who became the first non-US team to
play in a US league in 1968, eight years before the Blue Jays.
Even if you don't understand what's going on, a game can be a pleasant
day out, drinking beer and eating burgers and popcorn in the sun, with
friendly family-oriented crowds. Moreover, the home ground of each team
is a vast, wondrous modern stadium - the Skydome in Toronto and, for the
moment at least, the Olympic Stadium in Montréal. With six teams in each
division, there are 81 home games each season, played from April to late
September, with play-offs continuing through October; there is no set
match day and games are either played in the afternoon or evening.
Lasting for anything from two to three hours, baseball games never end
in a tie: if the scores are level after nine innings, extra innings are
played until one side wins.
Tickets for the Blue Jays are hard to come by and it's easier to get in
for games in Montréal. Nothing can match the glitz of the big two, but
there are other minor league farm teams , including the Edmonton
Trappers, Calgary Cannons and Vancouver Canadians.
Basketball
Basketball was invented by a Canadian, Dr James A. Naismith, in 1891.
What began with a bunch of his students and a peach basket suspended in
the air has become a fast-paced exciting sport with the world's tallest
athletes. After a 48-year absence two Canadian teams finally joined the
now misnamed National Basketball Association in 1995, the Toronto
Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies, who did about as well as could be
expected in their first season, though the Raptors, with huge star Vince
Carter, look like the team more on the upswing.
The NBA consists of 29 teams divided into two conferences, Eastern and
Western, which are further divided into two divisions. The Toronto
Raptors play in the Central division of the Eastern conference and the
Vancouver Grizzlies compete in the Midwest division of the Western
conference. Teams play an 82-game season with 41 home games in a season
that lasts from November to April - tickets cost from $10 to $130
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