The Centre Of The Universe?
December 2, 2016 § 2 Comments
An interesting thing has occurred in the realm of Canadian sports journalism in the past few weeks. For those of you who don’t know, the English-language Canadian media is centred in Toronto, which every media outlet will remind you is “Canada’s largest city.” The much smaller French-language media is centred in Montréal, which is Canada’s second largest city. Toronto’s got a population of around 4.7 million, compared to Montréal’s 3.8 million. Vancouver is third, closing in on 2 million. And Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa are all around 1 million. So we’re not looking at the situation in the UK, where London is the largest city and about 5 times larger than the second city, Birmingham.
But, reading Canadian sports media these days, and you’d be convinced that Toronto is the only city in Canada and that its sports teams are all wondrous, virtuous conquering heroes. Never mind the fact that Toronto teams don’t really win much of anything ever. The basketball Raptors and soccer Toronto FC have never won anything. The hockey Maple Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967. And the Blue Jays last won in 1993. The Argonauts of the Canadian Football League are the really the only continually successful Toronto sports team, having last won the Grey Cup in 2012 (but, the CFL is a 9-team league, so law of averages…).
Toronto FC was engaged in a tense two-leg Eastern Conference final in the MLS Cup Playoffs against the Impact de Montréal, or IMFC. An all-Canadian conference final should be one of those things that grip the nation, or at least get the media to recognize its import. And while Sportsnet, the second of Canada’s sports networks, largely has, TSN, the largest sports network and MLS rights holder, has not. It has openly and blatantly cheered for a TFC victory, and its coverage has exclusively treated IMFC as an interloper in TFC’s eventual, wondrous assent to the top of the North American soccer world. On Wednesday afternoon, in advance of the second leg of the series, to be played at BMO Field in Toronto, TSN posted this article about the five keys to the match as its headline on TSN.ca. Note that it’s all about what TFC needs to do to win. This is just the most egregious example. The rest of the coverage on TSN.ca Wednesday afternoon was all slanted towards TFC: its mindset heading into the match, which players it needs to excel, and so on. Not a word from IMFC’s perspective, except for a feel-good story about the club’s 38-year old captain, and Montréal native, Patrice Bernier.
In the aftermath of the TFC’s victory Wednesday night, in a tense 5-2 match that went to Extra Time, allowing TFC to advance 7-5 on aggregate, TSN’s homepage was a torrent of TFC. And while this is a good thing, and deserved, TFC won, it’s also still one-sided. This was especially true of the headline that said “TFC MAKES CANADIAN SOCCER HISTORY.” Factually, yes, it did. It made the finals of the MLS Cup for the first time and is the first Canadian club to do so. But, it did so after making history in an all-Canadian conference final. And there was not a single story about IMFC and its own very improbable run to the conference finals. TSN has continually picked against IMFC all season. It predicted the Montréal side would miss the playoffs. Then it wouldn’t get past DC United in the first round, or New York Red Bulls in the second round. And so on.
On Thursday morning, TSN.ca’s home page featured no fewer than 12 features and stories about TFC out of the 28 in total. Of the remaining 16 stories and features, 10 were about the Maples Leafs (7), Raptors (2), and Blue Jays (1). One story was about how the Calgary Flames pummeled the Maple Leafs Wednesday night and another mocked Montréal Canadiens winger Andrew Shaw and his bad temper. There’s a reason why Canadians in the Rest of Canada tend to dismiss TSN as Toronto’s Sports Network.
Meanwhile: Hockey. The top team in the NHL right now is the Montréal Canadiens. But, TSN’s coverage is almost exclusively about the amazing, wondrous Toronto Maple Leafs, who have a collection of burgeoning young stars and actually look like they might be a good team again one day. There are also, you might note, five more Canadian teams in the NHL. Sucks to be a fan of one of them: TSN just doesn’t care, other than to note the ways in which they’re failing.
And then Sportsnet. Sportsnet is the rights holder for the NHL in Canada. And while its coverage tends to be more national in nature, in that it notes that there are indeed teams in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Montréal, besides Toronto, how about them kids in the T-Dot, y’all? But Sportsnet can even out-do TSN. On Wednesday, the American-based Forbes published its annual list of NHL teams ranked by value. As always, the New York Rangers are the most valuable hockey team. The Rangers are worth $1.25 billion USD. But Sportsnet’s headline reads: “Maple Leafs Rank Third in Forbes’ Annual Most Valuable Team List.” So, you think, well, that makes sense. But, wait, what’s the second most valuable team in the National Hockey League? Chicago? Los Angeles? The New York Islanders? Nope. It’s the Montréal Canadiens.
Now, I know we Quebecers had ourselves a couple of referenda on leaving the country, and we still harbour a pretty strong separatist movement; at any given time, around 35% of us want out of Canada. But, in both 1980 and 1995, we chose to stay. And 65% of us at any given time want to stick around in Canada. And we keep giving Canada Prime Ministers. In my lifetime, five of 9 prime ministers have been Quebecers.
So, in other words, my dear TSN and Sportsnet, Québec is part of Canada. And Montréal remains one of the largest cities in North America, and also remains a major centre of global commerce. And its soccer team isn’t that bad, even if its appearance in the Conference Finals is a surprise. And its hockey team, which is, after all, the most decorated hockey team in the world, is the most valuable Canadian team.
And, if you just so happen to be one of those provincials from the rest of the country, well, as we say back home, tant pis.
Matthew Barlow 
Excellent post as usual. I am not a big sports fan but this is obvious even to me. My suspicion is it is related to the French language – these guy can’t use it and are at a disadvantage…result = ignore those damn Separatists anyway… Dave Schurman
Ha! Thanks. You are much more generous than I. This is also a thing with respect to Vancouver, especially (but also the other cities in Canada). It’s like the Toronto media goes out of its way to slag Vancouver, or otherwise denigrate it, as they do with Montréal. And in the case of Vancouver, they can’t claim language. I think it just speaks to the manifestation of the Canadian feeling of insecurity and inferiority writ large in Toronto. The difference is that while Canadians are generally humble and quiet as we suffer, some Torontonians have been too open to American means of brashness.