Canada's Adriana Leon, left, and New Zealand's Mackenzie Barry play Thursday in Saint-Etienne, France. Canada won 2-1 over New Zealand.Silvia Izquierdo/The Associated Press
A decade ago, the novelist Martin Amis did an hour-long documentary appraisal of his lifelong subject, England. A couple of years pre-Brexit, it was a portrait of decay.
One of the few bright spots Amis found remaining in English culture was cricket: “The foundational idea is that sport is not about winning. That it’s about glory and honour.”
Amis drew a comparison to the Second World War, claiming that enemy combatants preferred to surrender to British troops. They believed that made them more likely to survive.
“That’s sportsmanship. That’s fairness. Straight bat. Good play,” Amis said. He did not extend this praise to any other English sport, or to much else his countrymen did.
The implication was that England’s sense of fair play had eroded, and that sports was the ethical canary in the societal coal mine. That the two things – collapse and the need to win at all costs – were connected.
Early Friday morning in Paris, after 48 hours of dithering, Canada Soccer announced the suspension of women’s national team head coach Bev Priestman.
As seemed inevitable after Priestman’s reluctance to speak clearly about who knew what about spying on an opponent in France, this now appears to be much bigger than one rogue drone enthusiast. According to reporting by TSN’s Rick Westhead, the soccer program has been spying since way back, including during their gold-medal run in Tokyo.
A bunch of people will now be fired. A bunch more will be sent for re-education. The Canadian Olympic Committee and Canada Soccer will adopt a mantra of “change.” People will remind you to think of the athletes. They are innocent in all of this (maybe).
Whatever happens, the prime movers in this discussion will be sports people – the same people who created the mess in the first place. It will be like putting Shell and Exxon in charge of the global-warming file (which is what we’ve done).
On the one hand, who cares? It’s people who kick a ball for a living. None of this actually matters.
But as Amis suggested, how we approach our games doesn’t say something about our values. It says everything.
The word “values” has been tossed around with abandon during this embarrassment. It’s become the new “I’m going to start exercising” or “Let’s get together soon” – saying it is as good as doing it. The more we say it, the less inclined we are to follow through.
How many times did words like values and accountability come up in the midst of Hockey Canada’s ethical faceplants? You might as well be out there clicking your heels and saying abracadabra. Say whatever you like, but you are what you do.
So, are Canadians trustworthy? Straight bats? Good players?
You probably think so. You have to. Almost everyone you know is Canadian. It’d be dreadful to believe they’d drone you if they got the chance.
But if you don’t live in Canada, how are you making these judgments? Based on the only cultural practice everyone everywhere shares, one that is rooted in integrity – sports.
If Canada cheats at sports, and you don’t live in Canada, right now you believe Canadians are cheaters. A reputation takes years to build and one big story to ruin.
Some will say it’s pointless to get too angry about this. I say it’s time we finally got angry.
All of us survive out there in the big world on our good name. Generations of travellers have sewn the Maple Leaf on their backpacks not because they love this country so much, but because they believe it announces something: “‘Have no fear, stranger. You are encountering a person of good intention.”
A few morally ambivalent, self-aggrandizing, double-talking hucksters have hijacked that good name. They’re out there ruining it for the rest of us.
It’s not yet clear who exactly is to blame, but the what is evident – the sports establishment.
How many times do we have to be let down by this institution before we stop believing when it tells us it’ll definitely be better next time?
In the COC’s launch presser on Friday morning, CEO David Shoemaker – the same guy who was sure two days ago that head coach Priestman hadn’t done anything wrong because that’s what she alleged – said he was “sick” to his stomach at the thought that Canada’s gold in Tokyo may be tarnished.
That line got a lot of play, but it was the next bit that struck me. Shoemaker seamlessly transitioned from nausea to pathos, calling it “one of my favourite Olympic moments. In history! That women’s team winning that gold medal. Against all odds.”
These people really can’t help themselves.
We trusted the sports establishment to uphold the principles it never shuts up about, and once again it’s used that trust as a smokescreen. Because who would believe Canadians would do such a thing? Well, everyone now, I guess.
Through our tax dollars, TV subscriptions and ticket charges, we paid for this to happen. Who bought the drone that spied on New Zealand? Whether directly or indirectly, you did.
Now it’s time for Operation Clean-Up. Canadian sports has had a lot of practice at this drill. Say you’ll do something. Hire some lawyers. Commission a report. If it helps, leak parts of the report. If it doesn’t, downplay the report. Allow a few MPs to beat you like a piñata on Parliament Hill while you look contrite. Fire everyone. Quit. Replace the old sports goons with some new sports goons. Reassure your sponsors. Then it’s time to bring in the marketers because you’re back in business, baby.
Enough.
This happens and has happened before not just because sports people are venal and/or careless, but because regular people tolerate it.
If your cousin borrowed your car and crashed it, you wouldn’t let him use the new one. But we keep letting the same people drive.
It is time for the sports people to leave the room so regular people can have a serious conversation about where we’re at with sports in Canada, and if we’re happy about it.
What do we want sports to say about us? Because when it comes to publicly funded sport, whether in part or in whole, that is the one and only thing that matters. Honour and glory.
It’s great if you win. If you get caught cheating while you do it, you should have stayed home.
We should be angry. Not at them, but at ourselves. We created and are still creating the atmosphere of permissiveness that allowed this, and other, much worse things to happen.
As we waited for the Canadian women’s team to come out after Thursday’s game against New Zealand – a game it is now clear Canada should have forfeited – we were chatting with a New Zealand reporter. She was trying to be good about it. She asked how Canada felt.
I don’t know about Canada, but I said, “Ashamed.” I surprised myself in doing so.
When you’re talking to other Canadians, this is something they did.
But when you’re talking to someone from elsewhere, it dawns on you, in a very personal and uncomfortable way, that as far as they are concerned, this is something we all did.