The water-cooler talk on Monday morning goes something like this:
"Hey, we're not doin' too well lately, but I still think that we're gonna win."
"Yeah, but I'm not jumping off the bandwagon; I'm not a fair-weather fan. I know that we've got the team this year."
"But our big names need to pick it up. They're the guys who got us this far and they've got to prove that they're ready for the big show."
So you jump into the conversation:
"Those Canucks can be frustrating to follow, eh."
"Whaddya mean, Canucks? We're talking about the election."
OK, so this conversation didn't really happen, but could you imagine if people spent as much time and energy on the election as they do on hockey? Could you imagine if people invested as much of their identity into the political party that they're supporting as they do into the hockey team that they're following? If Canadians cared as much about politics as they do about hockey, we might actually have a functioning democracy.
People will tell you that their vote doesn't really matter. That they can't change the results. That all politicians are the same anyway.
And these same people will shriek if you say the word "shut-out" for fear that you'll jinx it. They'll wear their lucky shirt or watch from their lucky chair because they believe that it might impact the score. They'll heckle a player one year because he plays for the competition and then rave about him the next because he moved to "your" team for a big signing bonus.
This year, with the playoffs and the election happening concurrently, the disconnect seems even greater. Am I the only one that thinks there's something wrong with this? Am I the only one who thinks that maybe we've got our priorities skewed?
The fact is that as fans - apart from the income we bring into the organization - we have no impact on the outcome of games or the success of teams we support. And the other fact is that, in a very real sense, the success or failure of those teams has no tangible impact on our lives. Really. We may think that it matters, but it doesn't.
Yet our political system is built on the idea that the population has the right and responsibility to rule itself. And the choices we make at the ballot box have a very real impact on the way our lives will look.
What kind of health care system do we want? How much tax do we want to pay? Where will our military be engaged? What things, as Canadians, do we value? Those are the questions we're answering when we go to the polls on Monday.
The Canucks will win or lose and life will continue.
But on Monday, I'm hoping to see people showing up at work in their Liberal, NDP, Green and even Conservative shirt. I'm hoping that around the water cooler, people commit to giving 110 per cent for their team. If we can do that, we all stand to be winners.
