AS I SEE IT COLUMN: When politics and sport collide

In the 42 years that I’ve been writing this column, I can count on one hand with fingers to spare how many times I’ve responded to letters to the editor, whether they were positive or negative.

I have always maintained that we are all entitled to our own opinions; I have mine and others have theirs.

I completely understand that some people don’t want any politics in their sports; I too wish sport would be free from politics. But I also know from the times people come up to me in Steinbach and tell me that they enjoy the column, that some people are quite okay with discussions about the intersection of sports and politics.

One of my favourite phrases is “sports is the toy department in the hardware store of life.” I would love it if sport could stay in the toy department. But that’s not the world we live in anymore. Sport – like movies, TV, music, fashion and art – are frequently suffused with politics.

When it was revealed that Israel’s flag bearer at the Paris Olympics signed bombs destined for the ongoing genocide in Gaza with the phrase “From me to you with pleasure”, that’s a story that is not just a sports story. It’s a story about pure evil that needed to be told.

When the IOC bans Russia from the Olympics because of the war in Ukraine but hypocritically allows Israel to participate in the Olympics even though Israel has slaughtered over 70,000 Palestinians and similarly allows the U.S. to stay in the Olympic movement despite the global terror America has inflicted on the world as a result of bombing seven countries last year, that clearly is a political story and a sports story.

When Trump used the 4 Nations tournament to insult our Prime Minister and threaten to make Canada America’s 51st state, that was a textbook example of sports and politics intersecting.

When superstar American NHL players muse about leaving their Canadian team, that’s a sports story where leaving out the political component wouldn’t make any sense.

When ICE agents turned Minneapolis into a war zone and murdered two American citizens, that terrified many Manitobans who love to visit to watch hockey, baseball, football, basketball and soccer. It’s a story where sport and politics cannot be separated.

And then there are stories that seemingly have nothing to do with sports but actually have massive implications for sport and culture in our society. When Trump pardoned all the January 6 insurrectionists – including those convicted in court of seriously injuring 141 police officers – that doesn’t seem like a sports story.

But when you consider that Colin Kaepernick had his NFL career ended when he non-violently knelt during the national anthem of some NFL games, the breathtaking hypocrisy of conservatives being enraged about a peaceful sporting protest where no police were hurt but then are completely supportive of blanket pardons for violent protesters who savagely attacked police officers, that’s another instance where sport and politics converge.

When Trump cheers for American athletes to do poorly at the Olympics, that says something very important about the rot in modern conservatism. That some people can actually cheer against their own athletes is a sporting, political and cultural story all wrapped together.

The days of sport being able to live in its own isolated silo are mostly over. Today there are clashes of good versus evil, battles of life and death that are directly and indirectly connected to issues in sport, whether we want to acknowledge that reality or not.

Sometimes, like when the Niverville Nighthawks won the Centennial Cup or the Bombers won their season opener with a last second field goal, there are sports stories that thankfully – mercifully – have absolutely nothing to do with politics. But in today’s hyper-polarized society, those ‘toy department’ sports stories are increasingly rare.

For folks who don’t like discussions of sports and politics there is a very easy solution: don’t read my column. And to those who tell me they like stories about the confluence of sport and politics, I thank you for your support.