Sports allow us to feel deep emotion

Re: Perfect end to season for happy Stamps, Nov. 26

Why does sport have the ability to bring men to tears? To bring groups of people together in unrivalled joy? To torment men to the depths of despair? To inspire insane levels of commitment for training and preparation?

When you watch a Grey Cup, you aren’t watching men in coloured uniforms sprinting, tackling and catching balls. What you are watching is storylines as old as humanity itself play out in a winner-take-all spectacle of lights, pomp and tradition. It captures fundamental truths about humanity that you don’t find in many other theatres of modern life. It forces questions: What is redemption? What is sacrifice? What is adversity? What is brotherhood? What is courage?

In sport, team sport especially, we have a most incredible invention of humanity that allows the storylines of courage, adversity, triumph and defeat to be played out in spectacular fashion and in doing so we are able to tap into primal human emotions that change us fundamentally. You learn what it means to become human.

Patrick Shaw, Calgary