Toronto vs. Vancouver: It’s game on
Spring’s arrival offers renewal of the dormant Canucks versus Leafs rivalry and there’s really no contest
Let us begin with the obvious. Vancouver is better than Toronto. Vancouver has mountains, Toronto has dirt piles. Vancouver has trees, Toronto has shrubs.
Vancouver has glorious surf and breaching whales, Toronto has gently lapping lake waves and black crappies.
Vancouver has daffodils, Toronto has snow plows.
Vancouver has Emily Carr, Toronto has Voice of Fire.
Vancouver has summer breezes, Toronto has mosquitoes.
Vancouver has, um, pot, Toronto has Bay Street.
Vancouver has winter golfing, Toronto not so much.
Vancouver has Ryan Reynolds and Michael Bublé, Toronto has Jim Carrey and The Barenaked Ladies. ( OK, maybe that’s a tie.)
One could go on but that would be mean- spirited and, after all, we are Canadian.
But it’s no contest, really, and maybe that’s why the fight has gone out of our once healthy Vancouver vs. Toronto game.
The spirited sibling rivalry we once engaged in, the constant parrying between politicians and reality TV chefs, between sports franchises and stock exchanges, between weather forecasters in Victoria and North York seems to have waned in recent years, busy as we are turning ourselves into no- fun metropolises.
Perhaps we’re not made for true blood sports, like say the New York Yankees are when it comes to the Boston Red Sox. Or Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote. Letterman vs. Leno. Apple vs. Microsoft. Coke vs. Pepsi. Or, it must be said, Lindsay Lohan vs. sobriety and Tiger Woods vs. monogamy.
But rivalries, at least those based on lively competition, have always been good for the human psyche, inspiring both devotion and patriotism.
They get us talking, and get the blood boiling and, most importantly, keep us engaged as a collective, because in order to maintain a good rivalry, we must be in this together, numbers and knowledge being the best armour in any war.
Sports rivalries, of course, are the most enduring of all internecine scraps, as they are less about individuals ( though A- Rod might disagree) than they are about history and demographic idiosyncrasy, evidenced by the long- standing enmity between cricket teams in Pakistan, for instance, and soccer clubs pretty much anywhere.
Muhammad Ali, frankly, might not have been as famous without Joe Frazier dodging his heavyweight jabs, and in the absence of rival A. J. Foyt chasing him around the race track, Mario Andretti’s trophy cabinet would be much less crowded.
Here on Canadian soil, local turf wars have long included the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ lack of love for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the ageold Edmonton vs. Calgary snort- fest.
And, of course, any time a Canadian hockey team can beat any Russian or American hockey team, in the Olympics or otherwise, you can expect a national roar joyful and boisterous enough to rattle the polar ice cap. Oh, and Timmie fans hate Starbucks, although that quiet snobbery doesn’t carry quite the same cachet as any faceoff taking place in a sports arena.
Which is why it’s so great to hear that Toronto has a decent hockey team once again. Could this be the beginning of a resurrected east- west rivalry between our two cities?
Could it be that instead of just comparing our less- than- magnetic national football and soccer teams, we might now actually have a real sports rivalry in the making, given that the beleaguered Maple Leafs have come alive after a long dormancy ( and, just to up the game, given that their recently acquired and scruffily handsome knuckleballer R. A. Dickey and his heavily hyped backup Blue Jays band, also slow off the mark, have promised there will be some kind of pennant flying in Hog Town)?
Which metropolis will prevail? Which team will take their boys to the playoffs? Who will win the coveted national bragging rights?
Spring is here ( and by here, I mean here), the Canadian economy seems to be picking up, Kim Kardashian kontinues to karry Kanye’s kin, and the scent of a good old- fashioned eastwest sports rivalry is once again in the air.