The healing power of sport

I awoke heavy-hearted on

Jan. 30, unable to shake off the images of the previous day: swastikas and Confederate flags flying in the nation's capital; the grave of the unknown soldier, and the national aboriginal veteran's monument, defiled; the disrespect heaped upon the statue of our most famous Canadian.

I don't recall if the full woeful situation had sunk in by then. I just know that the whole thing left me in a melancholic funk, which was not helped by having learned just days before that I needed a hip replacement, even if a reassuring surgeon had told me that the procedure would do wonders for my quality of life.

It was a good thing then that I decided that sitting there bemoaning the state of the country was no way to start a day in which the pandemic still loomed large, and a storm-stayed power outage seemed just a gust of wind away.

So, I did what I usually do when the previous night's Toronto Raptors game isn't carried on our hapless streaming service: I headed to Twitter for a recap, which is where I learned that the previous night's game had been one for the ages: a triple overtime Toronto win, a test of endurance in which five Raptors ran up and down the court for more than 50 minutes, the first time in NBA history that so many players at one time demonstrated that level of stamina.

I frightened the dog with a couple of caffeinated fist pumps, then, as the dopamine flooded my brain, remembered that the men's final in the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, viewable on my laptop, was underway.

Down Under, I discovered logging on, something equally memorable was underway.

Grinding point after grinding point, having lost four kilograms in a marathon battle just days before with Canadian Denis Shapovalov, the indefatigable Rafael Nadal clawed himself back into a match against Daniil Medvedev.

The win gave Nadal the most grand-slam tournament victories by a man in history, which I suppose is a big deal.

What really thrilled me, what made me yell his nickname, “Rafa” with my imitation of a Spanish accent, over and over again as if I was actually sitting in the stands in Melbourne, was this: Nadal was a decade older than his opponent.

At the end of the match, which took nearly five-anda-half hours, the Spaniard looked physically diminished from the last time I watched him play, a few years back, when he possessed the biceps and quads of a Super Bowl safety.

What is more, coming into the match, Nadal said that he counted himself lucky to just be out on the court following potentially career-ending surgery last year.

All of which made an oldtimer with a gimpy hip feel that there was hope after all. That as daunting as things can seem — down two sets and facing triple break point from a towering Russian or slumped at the kitchen table on a bleak Canadian Sunday when all the news seems bad — hang in, endure, things can get better.

Sports, whether watching something on television, or lacing up the sneakers or skates yourself, teaches a person that.

It teaches other things too: the deep pleasure of doing something difficult well; that nobody gets anywhere alone; that though winning is better than losing, it is the doing of the thing, the playing, that endures.

If you are old enough, as I am, to have walked the streets of Toronto after a Blue Jays World Series victory, or, from outside, to hear a nation cheer when Paul Henderson scored his seminal goal against the Russians in 1972, you understand that sport can bring a country together too.

At least this is how it seemed to me on this Sunday as, amid the news churn, I noticed that the Canadian men's soccer team had a big game with the United States in the quest to qualify for the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

I kept one eye on things as the day progressed, emitting a small yip when we went up one zip. When Samuel Adekugbe turned on the jets and provided the exclamation mark, I yelled up to my wife.

It was, as one broadcaster put it, a “goal for the entire country.” And for the next few minutes, I ignored the stuff from Ottawa, and averted my eyes from the events and people driving us apart.

I just watched the goal over and over again, thinking of a hip that would allow me to run like Sam Adekugbe, and a country, for a moment, as united as the Maple Leafwaving crowd in the Hamilton stands.