Slightly Skewed
Jack Knox
Rev. Rob Warren was a wee bit bleary-eyed the other day.
Got up at the crack of dawn to join his bishop on a 13-kilometre hike from one 12th-century Scottish abbey to another.
Wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been up until 3 a.m. watching hockey on the Internet.
Such are the sacrifices of the long-distance fan.
I have known Rob since we were teens, long before his ordination as an Anglican minister, an event that not only stunned his friends but drove several to flirt with atheism.
He was raised in B.C., but spent the best part of 25 years in Quebec, mostly Montreal. Ran a big homeless shelter there until 2003, when he moved to Scotland, lured by the climate and cuisine ("Would you like your salad deep-fried or boiled?") There, he ministers to two congregations, St. James the Less in the town of Penicuik (pronounced "penny cook") and St. Mungo's in the village of West Linton (pronounced "Penicuik").
He is a Montreal Canadiens fan. A Canadiens decal adorns the back of his Vauxhall Astra. He occasionally wears a Montreal sweater (though after 6 1/2 years in Scotland he calls it a "jumper"). And he watches Habs games on the Internet, logging on at midnight and staggering to bed three hours later.
His Scottish wife, Caireen, talks about being a hockey widow. Probably accepts it as one of those quirky Canadian things, like Miracle Whip or seal clubbing.
"Of course, here they call it ice hockey," Warren says, on the phone from
Scotland. "If you call it hockey, they pretend to be confused. They look like the RCA Victor dog with his head cocked, so then you have to call it 'ice hockey' just to placate them. It's like the English in Montreal pretending they can't speak French."
Ah, yes, Quebec's two solitudes, anglophones and francophones living side by side yet sharing only one common goal: A desire to riot when the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup. Warren was in Montreal the last time it happened, in 1993. Was out for a peaceful post-game stroll down St. Catherine Street when a beer bottle sailed over his head and shattered against a brick wall. He turned around just in time to see a mob rush past, chased by baton-wielding cops. "One of them poked me with his baton. I felt indignant."
Alas, little reason to celebrate/riot since then, the Canadiens being in a 17-year rebuilding phase, which is hard on fans like Rob and me. Yes, I am a Montreal fan, too, though I often find myself cheering for the Canucks, which is like having an affair, only worse.
Fans respect fidelity, though that doesn't stop them from trying to lure the other team's supporters. My much-missed friend David Graham once gave me a Maple Leafs hat, which I didn't burn only because it came from him. I presented my niece's husband, an Ottawa fan, with a Habs sweater on their wedding day; he immediately sought an annulment. Stephen Harper appeared almost human when a Hockey Night in Canada camera caught him jumping for joy after the Leafs scored -- conventional wisdom says politicians should appear neutral, but a true fan appreciates a leader who doesn't forsake his club like Peter denying Jesus.
Sure, some fans are a touch overzealous. The son of the president of Belarus once shot the national hockey team's coach in the stomach during a dispute over player selection. Saddam Hussein's son Uday had Iraqi soccer team members imprisoned and tortured after bad games. Even Osama bin Laden was reported to be a big fan of Arsenal, the north London club. Think of poor Osama, deep in his cave, fiddling with the rabbit ears on the old 26-inch Zenith, trying to pull in the soccer highlights on Al Jazeera.
Anyway, Montreal is exceeding expectations this year -- nice, though it's not as if failure would shake a real Habs fan in any case.
"It's your team," Warren says in explaining his enduring loyalty to Les Glorieux. "It's a bit like the Anglican Church: Your glory days may be past, but you're still there -- and your glory days may return."
