Here’s the thing. Well it might not be the thing but it’s a thing. No doubt, a thing.

The thing is this: When I went to university I was arbitrarily put into a house, a residence. The first week was a concentration camp in mind warping. Thousands of 18 year old kids rounded up like cattle. We were made to wear clothing that reflected our house. Mine was yellow. If I remember right there was a fish on it. The kids in the other residences were also given their own shirts. They didn’t have fish on them. Between alcohol and, well, more alcohol, we were brought into large rooms for our regular mind warping. We were taught chants that we repeated by rote over and over again about how our house was the best. No statistics, no facts, no empirical evidence just happy rhymes. We were also taught chants about how the other houses were not the best. I remember that we made fun of one of the houses for being too rich, one of the houses for being too poor, and one of the chants – no doubt, the most clever – mocked a house for being too gay. Now, I’m reasonably sure nobody took these chants seriously. I don’t remember any of the chants that slandered us, the yellow shirts. We were instructed to out-scream our detractors. And thus, I never learned the chants against us. Within 5 days, many of us had drank more than we ever had, had, um, had intimate relations more than we ever had, and more importantly, were firmly and inextricably indoctrinated in our house.

A point is coming.

Tampa Bay Lightning just beat the Calgary Flames. The city of Calgary is disappointed, disheartened. A few weeks ago Toronto, the city, had a hard-on for the never-winning Leafs. When Toronto was winning the city was all atwitter and everyone even non hockey fans were all proud of their City. When Toronto lost the city hung its head in shame and disappointment.

I don’t entirely understand this city loyalty. The Calgary Flames has as much to do with Calgary as the Tampa Bay Lightning team has to do with Tampa Bay. Which is to say, not very much. Nobody from the Tampa Bay team is from Tampa Bay. In fact more than half of them are from Canada. Players get moved and traded and, as far as I can tell, have as much loyalty to their team as I had to my university house which is to say I wore the shirt and sang the songs but only because I had to.

And it’s funny to listen to the fans talk. First, more likely than not, they talk like they’re hockey coaches and like they have some kind of emotional and financial and, in most cases, spiritual investment in the game. Second, they use words like “we” and “them”. We? What is this we business? And it’s funny to watch the shift in we. A few weeks ago we used to be Toronto (at least from where I’m sitting) but now we has been extended to Canada. In which case we lost. Never mind that most of the boys on the Tampa Bay Lightning Team are from Canada.

Meanwhile fans and cities will continue to identify with their sports teams while I haven’t seen any evidence of the reverse. It’s all very silly. But the songs I was trained to sing in university were silly too and I still did that.

I know I feel better for having said so.

SS