Over the past week it has been remarkable to see our city transformed by sport.
I was really emotional during the Canada Winter Games opening ceremony. Not only the show itself but the television commercials about our city and the university truly reminded me how wonderful this community and region are.
I also was reminded of a column I wrote in 2013 when I was still pretty new to this gig. I hope you don't mind but I have reprinted a part of it here. At that time I was writing about Lance Armstrong and the revelations that he had, in fact, used performance enhancing drugs.
The column ended on a sad note about the loss of social capital but as I review that column today I am glad that I can apply the same analysis to a joyful event that has captured our community's imagination. Here is what I wrote:
"Sport is actually a very good case study for the study of politics. Sport is a great socializer and helps to us to create social capital. In a wonderful book entitled, 12 Books that Changed the World: How words and wisdom shaped our lives, Melvyn Bragg argues that the Rule Book of Association Football published in 1863 changed the world by creating a framework by which the game of soccer could "totally chang[e] the worlds of sport, the media and leisure."
"Bragg, who is a BBC radio personality, describes the way that soccer transformed from an almost anarchistic, rowdy, and wild game into a structured, competitive sport with a universal language.
"An exaggeration you say?
"Maybe? But... Bragg describes the rise of football through most of the world and looks at how the sport was able to define nations and "brea[k] down racial prejudice."
"Moreover, football, Bragg notes, has played a great part in the development of national sentiment in many places in the world. He tells us that First World War recruiters targeted the national football association in England to find recruits.
These men became role models, defined by their talents and embodiment of sportsmanship and they would lead other men to join the war effort.
"The Rules of Association Football made it possible for people across all parts of the world who liked to kick around a ball (which in 1863 would have been an inflated pig's bladder, according to Bragg) to be able to share the sport.
"The fact is that the creation of a framework of rules is powerful especially if the rules are underpinned with a deeply moral philosophy. The rules of play start with the virtues of sportsmanship and honour. They embody a moral sentiment about fairness and even equality. The actual list of dos and don'ts on the playing field only work if one accepts this ethic and becomes a "sportsperson" in the real sense of the word.
"One cannot help to see the parallels with our society and our politics. The rules of the game by which we live may be spelled out in constitutions but liberal democratic constitutions are only as strong as the moral philosophy from which they were derived. What keeps us together and unites us is not the list of rules by which we live but the trust we have that the rules reflect some greater purpose."
Here in Prince George in 2015 we see how sport enlivens our social capital. Over the past week I have witnessed amazing interactions among athletes but I have also seen interactions among people in the Canada Games Plaza and in local restaurants. And, yes, as Neil Godbout pointed out in his editorial on Friday, there might be some political protests or statements that remind us that things are not perfect but we celebrate knowing that we are free to express our opinions in civil dialogue.
In the plaza last Sunday, I thought how fun it must have been for the athletes from Newfoundland to sing along with Alan Doyle. I felt a bursting sense of pride for my city and my country. There are those who would say that nationalism is dangerous and that really our connections are only "imagined."
But, in the imagination comes an expression of ideals and shared values that propel us a long way in our journey to live well together.
