Guns, butter and the Stanley Cup - a few scattered thoughts

Summer at the Station

*Economics 101’s basic tenet: what is spent on guns cannot also be spent on butter. (Are you listening, United States of America, Greece, any other countries that finance domestic or military projects with borrowing because they flunked Economics 101?!?) Fanatics (fans) spent millions for seats at that seventh game snorer; those millions ceased to be available for groceries, charitable giving, gardening tools . . . whatever. Guns or butter.

 *Next to the fear of death, the fear of boredom ranks second. Sports fanaticism provides an illusion of engagement, an occupation for minds that doesn't tax the imagination. The bottle must be filled; if not with fine wine, then with Kool-Aid.

 *Welding a link between professional sports and militarism seems pretty natural. Witness that guru-of-hockey-knowledge and military booster, Don Cherry. In the minds of many people, apparently, life is a zero-sum game. For there to be a win, there must be an equivalent loss. Pride of victory demands equivalent agony of humiliation. And if it’s the home team that must bear the humiliation, well, then, police cars must be set on fire. Somebody who is not me must be humiliated.

*The pride of Rosthern, Robyn Regehr has been traded to Buffalo by the Calgary Flames, which means that it won’t be possible for Rosthernites to nip over to home games to watch him play next winter. What a crisis in fan loyalties this is going to create around here! I suppose a four million dollar a year salary takes some of the edge off the uprooting.

 *Sport: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. ▶success or pleasure derived from an activity such as hunting (Oxford).

*Vancouver/Boston playoff series – by the numbers

Henrik Sedin’s salary in 2010-11                                $6,100,000

What the average nurse can earn in a lifetime       $1,500,000 (est)

Vancouver losses to vandalism and looting             $4,500,000

Distance travelled by players in final series             16,089 km

Cost of fuel for team travel in final series                $275,760 (est)

Cost of insulin therapy for 9,500 diabetic

     Kenyans for one year (MCC)                                  $275,760 (est)

% of Canucks who are Canadian                                55

% of Bruins who are Canadian                                    65

% of Canucks who are American                                19

% of Bruins who are American                                   12

Cost of a keg of champagne for Bruins party          $100,000

No. of players on the Canucks active roster            36

No. of persons arrested during riot                           99

No. of persons injured during riot                              140

 But when all's said and done, it’s OUR GAME!