Let’s talk sports
Who here knows Clémence Desrochers?
I joked with a friend that writing against the Sens deal would make me Enemy of the People for a day or three and I wasn’t wrong. Evidently, we are not allowed to say negative things about professional sports.
So let me do it again.
I don’t care about your hobbies or passions anymore than you care about mine. You go ahead and enjoy yours and I’ll do the same. We’re allowed to behave like partners in a permanently miserable marriage, living separately in the same space and pointedly ignoring the other. We can still have lunch sometimes.
The problem is when your wife prevents you from doing your thing and forces you to do hers. Or one group of sports enthusiasts insists everyone else must support their thing, regardless of cost, and refuses to hear “no thank you.”
[INTERMISSION]
By the way, am I the only one thinking of Clémence Desrochers these days? Probably. Honk if you get it.
[END OF INTERMISSION]
Costs, by the way, are more than just subsidies or tax breaks or sweetheart land deals. And yes I get that in some cases pro teams also contribute to the community. Another friend on Facebook pointed to one such example in Toronto whereby a specific sports entity (he used an acronym! I don’t know what it means! I refuse to look it up!) invested significant sums to spruce up Union Station.
And while I don’t follow these things very closely, I’m also aware that pro athletes often support charities or other worthy causes. Perhaps out of the goodness of their hearts or as a careful marketing exercise. I don’t especially care which is which. Good deeds are good deeds and they’re appreciated.
But dammit.
What nobody is talking about are opportunity costs. Building a hockey arena at LeBreton Flats means LeBreton Flats becomes all about hockey, no matter what else gets built there or what other activities take place in the space.
That is my problem.
Ottawa is not just any city. It’s the capital of the country. Its pro sports facilities shouldn’t be right next to the Supreme Court and certainly not in a space of such historical significance. A sports facility is like every other sports facility and it says nothing special. Well, unless it’s Fenway Park or the old Forum, I suppose. And yes, I’m intimately familiar with both. This ain’t that.
I have an even bigger problem.
In Ottawa, we are failing badly at the basic things. Getting around is way more difficult than it should be, regardless of transportation method. Transit is an unmitigated shitshow. Roads and sidewalks are in poor condition in too many places to count. Downtown, which should be our showcase area, is nowhere near as presentable as it should be. Endless construction sure isn’t helping.
And then we have the homelessness crisis which, first and foremost, in an emergency because we can’t call ourselves a civic society when so many of our fellow humans live on the street. And yes, having people living in tents downtown is a problem in that public spaces are for everyone and shouldn’t be exclusively used by any one group of people. What the people in those tents need is a safe place while they put their lives back together with some support, instead of being ignored on Bank Street while everyone’s attention is focused on making sure the people who own sports teams are happy.
If all you see in my criticism of the LeBreton Flats proposal is that I make fun of pro sports, you are very much part of the problem.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying hobbies. There is everything wrong in demanding a society devotes its best land and resources to your hobbies while it dramatically neglects the basics.