A rendering of the proposed CalgaryNEXT arena.

The National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames need a new stadium. At least their owners say they do. The 35-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome is perfectly functional, but the team owners’ dream project was CalgaryNEXT, a new Bow-riverside complex home to the Flames and the Canadian Football League’s Stampeders that may also pull in more concert revenue. The proposed multiplex made a compelling pitch until the price tag appeared—$890 million, of which Flames ownership would pitch in just 22 percent. The remainder would come from taxpayers.

Yet even $890 million proved optimistic, as the wildly underestimated price tag inflated to $1.8 billion, with Calgarians assuming two-thirds of the bill. The Flames would also pay no property tax.

An unimpressed municipal government replied with a deal offering a rough 50/50 split in cost with the team paying taxes. Talks quickly broke down when Flames’ ownership opted not to negotiate in good faith, but instead reacted like children denied a new toy. Led by CEO Ken King, the team walked away from negotiations, called in NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to threaten the city, and inappropriately inserted themselves into Calgary’s 2017 mayoral election.

When arena-skeptic Naheed Nenshi was elected to a third term, the Flames’ media relations director tweeted, “Having @nenshi as mayor is worse than @realDonaldTrump being president,” using the hashtags “#arrogant” and “#outoftouch.” Murray Edwards and Clayton Riddell, two of the team’s owners, are worth a combined $4.8 billion. Edwards, Calgary’s second-richest man in 2016, would not have seen a nickel of his tax dollars fund CalgaryNEXT—his legal home is in the United Kingdom.

King’s most recent tactic has been to make the (likely) empty threat of moving the Flames from Calgary, where they have played since 1980. The relocation is improbable. Despite Bettman privately suggesting to Nenshi that the Flames jumping ship could destroy his political career, 75 percent of NHL owners would have to approve the move and open up the logistical mess of reformatting the league’s schedule. One of the most commonly cited possible destinations, Seattle, is now receiving an expansion team, leaving few potential markets offering both Calgary’s size and proven rabid fanbase.

Research from the Washington-based Brookings Institution and others have shown for at least two decades that publicly funding stadiums never works out in taxpayers’ favour—the proposed benefits never materialize anywhere near the extent of making up for costs. Only owners profit. While not new, the debate over taxpayer-funded stadiums has taken an ugly turn in Calgary: Supporters of the NEXT project, like the right-leaning Calgary Sun, have criticized the municipal government for investing in the supposedly wasteful evils of public libraries and bicycle paths. These are services that the majority of Calgarians support and anyone can use, regardless of whether they can afford pricey hockey tickets. The Sun has since deleted the offending article.

All of this could be setting a nasty precedent for Canadian sports cities: that billionaire owners, instead of sitting down to negotiate, can bluff, threaten, and lie to get their way. Historically, Canadian cities have done well in standing up to pro-sport bullying, but the tide is shifting. Quebec City built a $400-million stadium almost entirely with public money to fill a Nordiques-sized hole in their heart, solely in the vain hope of enticing an NHL team back to town. The 2012 renovation of Vancouver’s BC Place also went over budget, up from an initial estimate of $365 million to a final whopping $514 million price tag, all paid for with public cash.

While Calgary has yet to crack under the pressure, the NHL’s Oilers strong-armed the City of Edmonton into paying the majority share of a new arena by threatening to move. Their new rink, whose budget ballooned to $604.5 million, was pitched as part of an urban revitalization project for downtown Edmonton. Dubbed the Ice District, it consists primarily of luxury condos, hotels, and corporate headquarters, and its development is being handled by a real estate company controlled by none other than Oilers owner Daryl Katz.

Taxpayer-funded arenas simply do not benefit taxpayers, as the Calgary saga has shown. But in the face of underhanded tactics and open threats from billionaires denied vanity projects gifted by fans and non-fans alike, the faulty math is worth remembering. Sports franchises, while powerful social institutions and potential sources of civic pride, are simply another form of entertainment. You pay for a film ticket—you don’t subsidize the movie theatre.

Taking to the ice with smooth transitions and ever-changing focal points, contemporary ice skating company Le Patin Libre uses minimalistic choreography to create a performance that founder Alexandre Hamel calls “magical.” The Montreal-based troupe, founded by Hamel in 2005, focuses on providing a skating experience for its audience that’s free from competition and scores.

“It’s a little revolt,” says Hamel, explaining how contemporary skating is another way of looking at skating as an art. “Contemporary arts are made for poetic reasons, not for commercial reasons. There’s a desire of expression, of viewing art as a way to analyze the world, to analyze one’s self. This is what we’re interested in doing, and skating is not our end, but our means of doing so.”

After quitting the figure skating circuit and, later, Disney On Ice, Hamel created Le Patin Libre to preserve his love for skating. Starting on frozen ponds in Quebec, the group has grown into an international act that sets the bar for contemporary skating. Gradually, the members of the present company joined, and a more defined idea of contemporary skating was developed.

At the beginning of the troupe’s journey, the skating artists performed choreography that was heavy with acrobatic stunts set to rock tunes. The group soon broke from their “teenage-like” rebellion of the traditional world of figure skating and became what they are today. “We concentrated on the glide. This is the ultimate identity of skating. This is contemporary ice skating.”

Rediscovering the art of the glide and integrating it into their performances has led Le Patin Libre to the popularity they needed to be able to share their shows with audiences on rinks around the world. Le Patin Libre’s outlook on skating restructures the rink, calling on the spirit of community rather than competition. Hamel says, “Our art not only questions skating, it questions the ice rink in Canadian culture—it’s a big project.”

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

Last fall, I decided not to participate in panels, judging, and other events that failed to feature people of colour. When a conference or event organizer or radio producer got in touch, I would ask about inclusion and decline if the request couldn’t be fulfilled. I readily admit that the choice to decline all-white panels was an overdue recognition of my own hypocrisy. As a female sportswriter, I spend a lot of my energy lamenting the lack of women represented in sports conversations, and often discuss how that exclusion contributes to the mainstream’s toxic, sexist tone. Representation matters greatly to the public perception of who belongs and who doesn’t, and yet so often I see media line-ups, reporting desks, public events, and mastheads packed with mostly—if not entirely—white men.

I’ve never felt reluctance in publicly sharing the ongoing need for institutional change. Yet I realized that whenever I did get an invite, I never asked if people of colour also had a seat at the table. Quite simply, as a white woman, I wasn’t doing the work. And so, when I was asked to judge an annual literary award in late 2015, I said I wouldn’t be able to participate if there weren’t any non-white jurors. I was optimistic, and likely naïve, thinking I would be met with a positive response.

After a brief email exchange, I was promptly cut, losing not only the “honour,” but the paycheque that came with it.

Despite that discouraging start, I kept asking. And here’s the thing: every subsequent event either already had it covered, or gladly obliged. I certainly don’t think I have high power sway when it comes to threatening to pull out of public appearances, nor do I even remotely deserve any special recognition for doing something so small. The fascinating part of my new policy was how easily the request opened up a productive dialogue about diversity and why it matters.

Organizers I interacted with wanted more robust conversations, and were very happy to work to achieve that. No one was offended, uncomfortable, or put out. Events and radio appearances were also a great deal more interesting and relevant, with more perspectives spotlighted, more topics covered, and a mix of voices contributing. In short, things got better—not only for the individuals involved, but for the audiences.

I raise this personal anecdote not because I think I deserve credit. There shouldn’t be a reward for doing the bare minimum. But I want to highlight how easy it can be for people with privilege to confront an exclusionary industry. Often when sports media is critiqued for how white and male it is, excuses come out in droves. Yet, breaking down the status quo benefits the entirety of sports culture in a vital way—widening its audience, broadening the conversation, and making it more accessible to those who have long felt it doesn’t represent them. Deliberately opting out certainly hasn’t hurt my connections, my visibility, my career or my bank account. Imagine the change possible if every high-profile, well-paid, established white male sports personality did the same.

But so much more than benefiting institutions and individuals in tangible ways, diversity is something to strive for because, quite simply, it’s the right thing to do. We shouldn’t do it because it’s easy, or profitable, or capable of bringing us better audience numbers. We should do it because everyone’s experience of sports deserves to be valued and heard. We should do it because inclusion directly contributes to everyone’s safety, comfort, and enjoyment. Because as it stands now, many people love sports with the understanding they are not welcome in a “white man’s domain.”

I regularly correspond with a group of fantastic sportswriters who share how they often feel shut out, beat down, abused, and hopeless. They lean on each other hard when they feel the pull of “why bother,” and offer support to pursue it another day. When you’re a person who discusses the game and doesn’t fit the status quo, you operate with the understanding that a lot of sports culture would rather not have you around. Yet still you work away—banging on doors, swatting at trolls, dodging vile hatred and consistent sexism and racism, all because you love it so damn much.

Institutional support helps make those rampant feelings of exclusion easier to bear, and it’s everyone’s responsibility to work towards the goal of diversity. My humble proposal to those who make up the status quo is this: Consider risking the loss of the space you firmly occupy, because, as my tiny experiment revealed, it can take so little for an enormous potential gain. Despite the oft-discussed anxieties inherent to creating space for others, the ultimate long game reward is a better community for everyone. It is amazing what is possible when we step aside and make some room.

Sens fan Katie Kerrick was assaulted at Friday’s game. Prior to this she met Ottawa player Bobby Ryan.
Photo from Kerrick’s Facebook page.

Sports culture—jock culture—is part of our national masculinity. And in the case of Canada, national manliness is all about white middle class men playing hockey, chugging beer, and getting maple leaf tattoos, as pointed out by William Bridle and Martyn Clark in “If Canada is a ‘Team’, Do We All Get Playing Time? Considering Sport, Sporting Masculinity, and Canadian National Identity.” Our Canadian heroes are players like Sidney Crosby: white, assumed to be heterosexual, and rich. Hockey players are known for their hard work and making it to the top.

Undoubtedly a lot of work is put into becoming and remaining a NHL player. But, it’s not exactly like the majority of hockey players started from the bottom and hard work alone got them where they are today. In the last 10–15 years, minor league hockey costs have dramatically increased, “It’s a development that threatens the sport’s blue-collar roots, including the idea that the next Gordie Howe or Wayne Gretzky will come from backgrounds as modest as theirs were,” James Mirtle reports in a 2013 article for the Globe and Mail. “Players of modest means in this generation must beat out peers who are often better trained and have spent many more hours on the ice, thanks to wealthy parents.” Wealthy, in the majority, is connected to whiteness and men. The NHL insists “Hockey is for everyone,” boasting its history of black players. Still, there’s no question the majority of players are white—white Europeans, actually (but somehow this is a Canadian sport).

At the professional men’s level, hockey is an aggressive (thus manly) sport, and it can easily become a place where both players and fans release their aggression. In the case of fans, frustration from socio-economic stress, bruised egos and socially-taught entitlement, can all add fuel to the fire. Michael Kimmel writes about how the growing divide between the haves and have-nots has added to white male anger in his book Angry White Men: “It requires that we both look into the hearts of regular guys, as well as those who feel marginalized, and that we examine the social and historical circumstances that brought them to this precipice.” I wonder whether this sort of this behaviour will be seen in the stands of National Women’s Hockey League games? Or is automatically part of a less “manly” culture—the kind that won’t attract the type of men who attack two young women?

When Kerrick and her sister were hit with towels, shoved, called “whores”, and had beer poured on them, it wasn’t because Montreal fans are inherently evil. It has nothing to do with the city or the specific team. It isn’t even a result of the sport itself. It is a result of the culture we created and continue to perpetuate. This culture allows this group of men to think their entitlement and assertion of manliness is acceptable behaviour. And when attendants dismissed the women’s abuse and did nothing, when security was nowhere to be seen, these men were proven right. Our anger at the city of Montreal would serve everyone better directed at the mentality that “boys will be boys” and this is how Canadian boys are expected to act.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Here is our round-up of who’s saying what about the Sochi debacle.

The Olympic logo for the Sochi Games

The controversy gained momentum with Stephen Fry’s open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in which he compares endorsement of the 2014 Sochi games to the 1936 Berlin Olympics: “The Olympic movement at that time paid precisely no attention to this evil and proceeded with the notorious Berlin Olympiad, which provided a stage for a gleeful Führer and only increased his status at home and abroad. It gave him confidence. All historians are agreed on that. What he did with that confidence we all know.”

George Takei, Star Trek alum and internet phenom, suggested moving the Games to Vancouver, as the city already has the necessary infrastructure left over from the 2010 Games. An online petition requesting the move has garnered almost 170,000 signatures.

Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson released a statement during Vancouver’s Pride Week late last month, in which he condemned the Russian government for their discriminatory law: “I would like to join the millions worldwide who are calling upon Russia to end its violent crackdown on the human rights and free expression of the LGBTQ community ahead of hosting the world in Sochi. I am also calling upon the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee to urgently explore every possible option to ensure that the next Olympic and Paralympic Games are hosted in a manner that guarantees the full, safe, and open participation of the LGBTQ community.”

As his statement predated Takei’s blog suggesting Vancouver host the 2014 Games, the mayor did not comment on the possibility of hosting a second time.

Outspoken Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno says the Sochi Games should (and will) proceed as usual—and that athletes will bear the responsibility of representing LGBTQ pride in whatever way they can. She believes the Russian government will not enforce the law when faced with international scrutiny and open protest, though this blogger wouldn’t want to go to jail in Russia, not even for the 15 day sentence the law dictates, not even taking a stand for human rights. Pussy Riot’s still in there somewhere; media scrutiny may not make a difference.

U.S. President Barack Obama recently cancelled a meeting with Putin, citing a standstill in human rights discussions. The president has been vocal about his support of LGBTQ rights around the world, but also put rumours of an American boycott of the Games to rest: American athletes will compete.

The NHL signed on with You Can Play in April, an organization committed to eradicating homophobia in sports. The statement announcing the partnership said “The You Can Play Project … formalizes and advances [a] long-standing commitment to make the NHL the most inclusive professional sports league in the world.”

Yoni Goldstein of the Huffington Post suggests NHL players, some of the few professional athletes competing in the Winter Games, boycott. He says that while for amateur athletes a boycott is a career death sentence during the brief window of peak performance, NHL players are well-paid outside of the Games. A Team Canada boycott of Sochi would be a pretty serious kick in the pants for a nation almost as hockey-crazed as we are.

John Baird, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, has been both lauded and criticized for his opposition to the anti-gay law. A Canadian women’s group says his pro-LGBTQ stance does not reflect the beliefs of all Canadians (there’s discrimination at home too).

The IOC released a weak statement about their commitment to human rights and the inclusivity of the Games, saying that the organization “has received assurances from the highest level of government in Russia that the legislation will not affect those attending or taking part in the Games.” Sources in the Russian government do say, however, that the law will apply to tourists, athletes, media, and other visitors to the country.

Putin may have the last (perhaps hypocritical) word here: “We are determined to organize a real celebration in 2014, a festival of sport, deserving of its unique mission: to unite people around the world with really significant values: a healthy lifestyle, tolerance and equality.”

It is heartening to hear the many voices standing up for human rights, impassioned advocates calling for action. It is disheartening to know that the Olympic machine, in all it’s supposed apolitical complexities and controversies, may simply push forward. Here’s hoping the IOC takes a stand.

An XCC Match on the Walpole Island First Nations Reserve, August 2010. Photo by Jeremy Beal.

The champ climbs into the steel cage against the sounds of loud, thrashing theme music, polite applause, and the odd hiss. Caleb Grummet may be holding the championship belt, but the crowd isn’t here to see him retain the title. Chris “The Menace” Clements is waiting in the ring, and the 900 fans in attendance have already given their hometown boy a hero’s welcome.

Before the crowd even has a chance to roar, Clements opens with a rush of punches that lands one good right hook to Grummet’s ear and sends him scampering back. Grummet, knowing well he’s outgunned by Clements’ standup game, backs out and buys some breathing room. When the pair lunge again, Grummet performs a textbook takedown, twisting Clements onto his back and wrapping his neck in a headlock, cutting off blood to his brain and air to his lungs. Clements manages to wriggle his way out of the hold, only to be trapped yet again. The partisan crowd groans and the referee squints closely for any sign of submission or loss of consciousness. Clements moves calmly and conserves energy, working his weight against an imperfect hold all the while ticking down the seconds he has left.

Mixed martial arts will be sanctioned in Ontario for the first time starting in 2011. This type of combat sport, incorporating aspects of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and martial arts, is often referred to as Ultimate Fighting, from the name of its most prominent organization. Though six other provinces and at least 46 U.S. states allow professional MMA matches, Ontario has held out longer than just about any other major jurisdiction on the continent besides New York State.

Opposition to mixed martial arts has generally come in two flavours: concerns over medical health and concerns about the moral problem of condoning violence. At the annual general meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in August, the CMA’s then-president Dr. Anne Doig restated the association’s official call to maintain the ban: “We are concerned when people engage in activities, the sole purpose of which is to pummel, kick, punch, scratch—whatever methods they use—until either somebody is seriously hurt or injured, or somebody cries uncle and submits.”

The other major concern that this kind of fighting prompts is that, beyond being damaging to the body, it is also, in some way, corrosive to the soul—that the spectacle of two gladiators beating each other senseless satisfies an appetite too dark and primal to be sanctioned by a modern society. In August, Toronto writer Susan G. Cole called the new move to legalize “a sign of social depravity” and “repulsive,” in her column in NOW Magazine. “Does anyone really think we can do anything about reducing violence in our culture,” she asked, “when the government is making money by entertaining sadistic audiences with vicious bloodshed? The fact that it’s popular doesn’t make a difference to me. Blood lust has always been big, ever since the Romans sent the Christians to the lions.” The arguments against MMA are both scientific and emotional, but they’ve been outshouted by the cheering masses and the ring of the cash register all the same.

MMA might not have been legal in Ontario, but it has been going strong under the province’s nose longer than the current government has held office. Competitions have been running underground in southern Ontario for more than a decade, one of the province’s worst-kept secrets. As early as 1996, they’ve happened on First Nations reserves near Barrie, Brantford, London, and Windsor. The on-reserve location isn’t coincidental: in the wake of the Ipperwash crisis, the Ontario government has shied away from challenging the boundaries of First Nations’ sovereignty. The result was, and remains, jurisdictional ambiguity, allowing grey-market businesses— gambling, tobacco, extreme fighting—to thrive, a legal blind spot hidden in plain view.

But in less than a year, the Ontario government’s position on legalizing MMA shifted from visceral disgust to “not being on the radar” to fast-tracked official endorsement. The turnaround was in large part the result of concerted lobbying by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, the sport’s largest, richest, and most recognizable league.

UFC president Dana White has repeatedly called Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe the “mecca” for mixed martial arts, and expressed his intent to conquer. White told anyone who’d listen that “Ontario is the UFC’s biggest market,” that support for his sport was virtually unanimous, and that it was only a matter of time before legalization threw the doors open. In early 2010, White appeared satisfied with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s assessment that legalizing the sport wasn’t a top priority. “The world being the way it is, he’d be in real trouble if MMA was at the top of his list,” White quipped. After all, that was solid progress from the premier’s assertion that he “hated” the sport a few short months prior.

Privately, however, the UFC was lobbying hard. In May, White decided to flex his company’s considerable muscle: with almost no notice, he announced that the UFC would be making a “major announcement” at a Toronto press conference a few days later. That vague promise drew a scrum of reporters of every stripe, who turned out en masse. The move turned out to be some well-scripted posturing, and White announced to a disappointed crowd the opening of a satellite office in Toronto, helmed by former Canadian Football League commissioner Tom Wright. In addition to the well-known football heavyweight, the UFC had already retained former Ontario premier David Peterson’s bulldog lobbyist law firm Cassels Brock, who had already been applying pressure behind the scenes for some time.

The PR stunt was a pushy, calculated move, but the numbers did their share of talking as well. The nanny-state accusations, the lobbying pressure, and the promise of adding millions to the provincial coffers through sanctioned events proved enough to let MMA legislation skip the queue. On August 14, Sophia Aggelonitis, at the time Ontario’s minister of consumer services, announced that in the interest of keeping fighters safe, Ontario would be giving professional mixed martial arts the go-ahead starting in 2011.

Photo by Jeremy Beal.

On the Tuesday before the August 28th match, I’m hanging out at Adrenaline Training Center, a pristine MMA training centre sitting behind a hardware store parking lot in London, Ontario. Adrenaline opened in 2007, a stone’s throw from a rough neighbourhood notorious for OxyContin abuse and prostitution, but the gym’s interior strikes a hard contrast to its host neighbourhood. It’s almost fussily clean, with perfectly maintained equipment and clean-cut staff and patrons. A regulation boxing ring and an MMA-specific steel cage occupy opposite ends of the gym, while punching bags, free weights, and even a gift shop sit neatly between.

Alex “Pecker” Gasson greets me at the front desk and gives me the tour. He stands just under six feet tall and has won enough accolades in kickboxing, MMA, and Pankration (a fighting style descended from ancient Greek wrestling) to fill several trophy cases. Today he sports a pink crescent scar around his left eye, courtesy of a full three-round bout two months prior.

“Three stitches, a nice, clean cut,” he waves dismissively.

Upbeat and energetic, Gasson talks up the mix of groups that use the gym. It plays host to wrestling clubs, fitness fanatics, boxers, martial arts groups, and, of course, MMA classes, their bread and butter. (Though matches have never been sanctioned, official training in the sport is condoned and prolific throughout Ontario.) Their patrons come from varied backgrounds: students from nearby Fanshawe College and the University of Western Ontario flood in every fall; thirtysomething professionals arrive in their BMWs alongside teenagers on ratty 10-speed bikes.

The Ontario decision is only a few days old, but having spoken with Gasson a few weeks earlier, he thought the change was bound to happen. He thinks the organizations that have been operating illegally will flourish under a new regulatory regime. “The people going to the shows, they aren’t die-hard fans of the promoters,” he says. “They’re fans of the fighters. The organizations that know the fighters, that already have relationships with the big names—they’re the guys that will thrive.”

New sanctioning will bring with it a new provincial governing body and, most likely, strict guidelines that help justify the Ontario government’s change of heart on the issue. That means a board of governors and an oversight body. I ask Alex if there is anyone from the tightly knit community he thinks the province should bring onboard, in terms of expertise. “Sure. Me.”

When you make your living getting kicked in the face, a healthy dose of narcissism is more or less requisite. But Gasson and his cohorts from Adrenaline might just be the people best suited to take their sport into the light. They take it seriously, train top-shelf athletes and run a very tight, respectable ship. What’s clear in talking to Gasson and others is their ambition towards the mainstream credibility at home they enjoy everywhere else on the continent.

Chris Clements, a trainer and mainstay of the Adrenaline team, is often credited with holding the world record for fastest knockout in the sport, thanks to landing a quick haymaker to an opponent’s charging jaw in Montreal in 2006. Clements, 34, has been involved in MMA for about eight years. Trained originally in tae kwon do and then as a boxer, he was taking some time off when he read about MMA in the newspaper. Seeing a chance to fight in real matches for real money, he got involved and became one of the bigger Ontario names in the sport while it was still in its infancy.

Clements’ 80-kilogram frame sits slack and comfortable behind the gym’s desk, flanked everywhere by merch bearing his and his partners’ names. He speaks calmly and thoughtfully with the quick cadence of the southwestern Ontario accent, and falls naturally into a conversation about the state of the sport in the province.

“That’s one thing about these fights. Everywhere else you fight, there’s a commission guy watching you get your hands taped. There’s blood tests, steroid tests. On the reserves there’s no one. They could be taping metal bars to their hands. There’s hepatitis, HIV. Blood can get into your eyes, your mouth, you just don’t know.”

Consistency and fairness is another black-market problem. “Pecker and another guy had a draw at the last one. [The promoters] wanted them to go another round, and they said no, so they just went back and changed the scores.”

“With the amateurs it’s even worse. These promoters are making a lot of money. When I first started you had to be training for years. You’d have to have a known MMA coach, he’d put in a word for you, and you’d get a small fight. I’ve been at fights on native reserves, you go talk to the guy in the dressing room, ask him how long he’s been training. He says some guy in a bar offered him $500 to fight the night before. It disrespects guys like me who put in 10, 15 years of martial arts training. It makes us look bad. With some of these events, if they have 15 fights, I’d say out of 30, maybe six guys actually belong in the cage.”

Clements shares the opinion with the rest of the gym that the decision to sanction the sport is a good one. “I’m in the main event this Saturday on the reserve, and it’s my home town. I wouldn’t do it for any other reason. I’d rather see them get wiped out … I think they’ll go under.”

Crossing the bridge onto the Walpole Island First Nation on the Saturday evening, there isn’t much to tell you anything’s changed. The only visible difference is the lack of brand-name franchise stores in the strip mall. The hockey rink hosting the fight looks like anything you’d find in a thousand small towns across Canada.

But the reserve still carries a stigma among outsiders; I was surprised at the friends and family members who warned me of the dangers of setting foot on the reserve. Some expressed concern for my safety, others refused an invitation to come along. An astonishing number recited hearsay about the calamities that had happened to friends of friends who “went over there.” Of course, it was all disturbingly bigoted nonsense: whatever problems exist on this reserve, the urge to rough up white MMA fans with money to spend is not one of them.

The racial dynamics of the event are curious. You get the impression—from the demeanor of the Bkejwanong security guards and police on site and the notably small number of aboriginal fans in the crowd—that the event is regarded as an oddity at best. Native kids with skateboards stand and watch the crowd of almost exclusively white revelers lined up outside the arena with a wary curiosity. There are 900 people here to see the fight, but only a dozen or so are residents of the reserve.

Historically, these events have played the indigenous iconography to the hilt: the last organization to set up shop at Walpole was Fighting Spirit MMA, which bills itself as Ontario’s “Ab”original MMA organization. (The band council at Walpole recently cut ties with the group over some outstanding bills.)

Tonight, however, the promotional team is a company out of Michigan called Xtreme Cagefighting Championship, or XCC. The American league found an aboriginal silent partner to get around local ownership bylaws, which was contentious, but not contentious enough to stop the fight. The coming change could be a bellwether for the soon-to-be-legal business. With legitimacy looming, the larger, better-funded American leagues look poised to crowd out the smaller organizers—mainly aboriginal entrepreneurs—that have controlled the black-market sport for more than a decade. Tonight, titled “XCC 64: Battle at the Border 10,” marks XCC’s first foray into Canada.

MMA events may be illegal, but patronage, promotion, and sponsorship are alive and well: restaurants, energy drinks, gyms and gear outfitters are keen to slap their logos all over the event’s promotional material, and a select few are even shilling their wares in the arena the night of the fight. Local businesses, both directly related to the sport and others looking to advertise to the target demographic the events pull in, actively and aggressively sponsor rounds, intermissions and official after-parties. A small family-owned vitamin water company has been following the various tournaments so closely that their daughter is invited to sing the national anthem to start the night.

Before that can happen, though, an emergency of sorts breaks out. Woodrow James, the XCC lieutenant and promoter responsible for the evening, has been flitting in and out of the arena, dressing rooms, and small circles of agitated entourages, putting out fires. There have been some no-shows (more the rule than the exception at these events), and James is calming down a supremely agitated manager whose fighter is apparently without an opponent. The confrontation degrades almost instantly into a shouting match.

“Your guys should fucking be here; this is bullshit! You’re fucking amateurs! The whole setup is amateur!”

“Fuck you, then, leave—fucking leave!”

As it turns out, the two missing fighters had been pulled over en route from London by the police, who had clocked them at 180 km/hour in a 50 zone. Inexplicably, they were only delayed and all the fights advertised on the card went on, although in shuffled order.

Speaking with James, flush with excitement from having successfully quarterbacked his first Canadian event, he sounds more like the biggest fan in the building than the orchestrator. He is a thirtysomething former fighter who was plugged in to the London scene well before he got his job with XCC. He was roommates with Chris Clements and is on a first-name basis with most of the staff at Adrenaline. “Chris Clements is my best friend,” James says. “Business is business, but I’m scared as shit for him and I want him to win.”

James loves the location and considers it well above the median. “I love the arena atmosphere. The fighters get to have showers, a little breathing room, a place to sit.” Even south of the border where the events are legal, it seems frills like showers and proper dressing rooms are few and far between.

The fights start a full hour and 15 minutes later than advertised but the crowd barely seems to notice. The national anthems are belted out, the announcer spills out the opening ceremony and the fighting commences.

The first match of the evening neatly illustrates the Canadian Medical Association’s assertions about the risks of brain injuries in MMA: Jeff Silver, an Adrenaline-trained fighter, lands a right hook not 20 seconds into the match that leaves his opponent, D.J. Gamble, stupefied on the ground, announced colloquially as TKFO—“Technically Knocked-theFuck-Out.” The crowd doesn’t seem to mind trading substantial fights for highlight material, and excited chatter bubbles up while the next fighters are immediately introduced in the interest of making up the lost time.

The second fight is the sole women’s bout of the event, pitting Bernice Booth against Randa Markos. Their fight is a particularly technical one, filled with more punches and kicks than the average men’s bout. It ends with a full flip into an “arm bar submission,” whereby Booth’s elbow is hyper-extended against her opponent’s thigh, that forces Booth to tap out.

The evening is filled with strange juxtapositions: all-American looking dudes taking on tattooed punks; flabby bodies pitted against muscle-bound Atlases. Throughout the entire night there is a palpable current of energy flowing through the crowd, punctuated by the oohs and ahhs that accompany landed fists, knees, and all sorts of bloodletting. That it caters to baser instincts doesn’t make it any less irresistible or troubling. It’s dangerous and brutal, disciplined and technical, entertaining and grandiose, cheap and sickening.

Chris “The Menace” Clements looked to be on the verge of passing out from the arm twisted around his neck, complemented by an ongoing introduction to Caleb Grummet’s elbow. Somehow, Clements slips free and quickly rises to his feet, and the momentum of the match turns, with Clements landing a string of solid punches until the sound of the bell ends the round. The fighters retreat to their corners, Clements eerily composed, as if he’s standing in his own living room.

Thirty seconds into the second round, Clements’ fist opens up Grummet’s forehead, sending a torrent of blood spattering over both fighters. The cut is bad enough to put the fight on hold for some first aid, but Grummet is soon back on the mat, showing a brave face but not much else, and absorbing blow after blow until the referee halts the fight, calling the match in Clements’ favour and awarding him the belt. Adrenaline has another champion on its staff, and The Menace spends the next 20 minutes posing exhausted but victorious for the cameras, smiling and looking not even slightly dangerous.

These are the last days of underground MMA on the reserves, and whatever your opinion on the sport itself, having events sanctioned and governed by stricter and safer regulations should be a welcome change. Distaste for the sport does not justify indifference to the well-being of its participants. For all the gladiatorial hyperbole put on by the organizers who market the sport, the fighters consider themselves, and each other, legitimate athletes who are due the same protections and respect that their peers in boxing, hockey, and every other violent sport receive. This is a sport that prides itself on pushing limits and buttons, but the core of this phenomenon is still the men and women who choose to enter the ring, but have had to risk shoddy conditions to do so. Those conditions are set to improve, but there is a more important change coming next year. It’s all too clear that the appetite for this controlled violence exists: pay-per-view numbers and the draw to events like the ones on Walpole Island speak for themselves. These blackmarket venues provided a moral cover for Ontario’s collective self-image. MMA was condoned, but could essentially be dismissed as de facto criminals servicing a fringe group of ultraviolent thrill-seekers. Now that the sport has been embraced, it becomes a true piece of Ontario’s official identity. One wonders whether the province will be able to tell the difference.

Toronto's Rogers Centre (formerly Skydome), built with public funds and later sold off to private business for a pittance. A major league sports team is often assumed to be more economically stimulating than actual results attest. Creative Commons photo by Mike Babcock.

The National Hockey League playoffs open this week and the abundance of emotion-laden storylines are sure to captivate a significant portion of the the Canadian sporting public’s hearts. But while three Canadian squads—the Vancouver Canucks, the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators—vie for Lord Stanley’s coveted Cup, there’s another, less exciting, story unfolding that probably should captivate our minds, even those of the non sports-adoring variety.

Tomorrow, the city council of Glendale, Arizona will vote to approve the arena-lease agreements for the two bids put forward to purchase the suburban community’s NHL hockey club, the Phoenix Coyotes. But, as the Globe and Mail reported this weekend, even if the leading bid, submitted by Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reisdorf, is approved the lease agreement may not survive. In an interesting twist of fate, a lawyer for the Goldwater Institute recently announced that the conservative watchdog group won’t hesitate to take the city of Glendale to court if it appears the agreements are in violation of Arizona laws against public subsidies for private corporations.

The concern for Goldwater is a piece of the Reisdorf “memorandum of understanding” that calls for local taxpayers and businesses to foot up to $165-million of the purchase price and annual operating losses. While this sort of stipulation isn’t unusual in the standard agreements between sports franchises and host cities, it is unusual that a powerful watchdog is calling both parties out.

For too long, the public has dogmatically accepted the connection politicians and team owners like to tout between sports franchises and local economic development. Massive public subsidies are regularly given to billion-dollar sports operations under the guise that they will bring an influx of new economic activity to the local community. This year alone, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Hamilton have all, at one point or another, flirted with the idea of bringing a professional hockey team home. And each has made claims about the economic benefit a pro franchise would bring. However, the problem is that justification is demonstrably false. There is, in fact, no economic rationale for publicly funded sports teams and stadiums.

According to Andrew Zimbalist, a prominent sports economist at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, all independent scholarly research on the economic impact of sports teams and stadiums has come to the same conclusion: there isn’t any. As he told Stephen J. Dubner on the New York Times Freakonomics blog, contrary to the rhetoric often aired by local politicians and sports teams owners, “one should not anticipate that a team or a facility by itself will either increase employment or raise per capita income in a metropolitan area.”

The economics behind this are complicated, but, generally, three principles hold. First, sports stadiums rarely create new capital: consumer spending on sport is almost always a redistribution of existing dollars in the local economy. People don’t spend money they wouldn’t have otherwise; they simply spend some their entertainment budget on local teams instead of something else. Second, much of the income generated by the team ends up leaking out of the local economy. Millionaire owners and players have their savings tied-up in world money markets and often live and spend their money outside of the host city. Third, and perhaps most importantly, host governments typically contributes close to two-thirds of the financing for the facility’s construction, usually takes on obligations for additional expenditures and routinely guarantee a significant amount of revenue. In other words, it’s the taxpayers that bear most of the risk—not the multimillion-dollar franchises that make a city home.

That’s not to say there aren’t perfectly good reasons for cities to host big-time sports teams or build world-class sports stadiums. It’s just that the supposed “positive economic impact” of a sports franchise shouldn’t factor into local governments’ decisions. Cities spend millions of dollars on cultural activities that they don’t anticipate to yield additional revenue. Sports teams can have a powerful cultural impact on a community and are integral part of most cities’ social fabric. If local residents value sport they are obviously welcome to allocate public dollars toward it. In fact, I, for one, hope they do. But sports teams and stadiums should be sold as a source of civic pride—not as a source of economic development.

Today in Verbatim, This contributing editor Andrew Wallace interviews Dave Zirin, sports editor of U.S. progressive weekly The Nation and host of Edgeofsports.com, a blog and radio show that examines the collision of politics and sports. He’s the author of several canonical books on that topic, most recently of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and before that wrote What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States and Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports.

As always, this is a transcription of the biweekly This Magazine podcast, “Listen to This.” You can hear the whole audio interview here, but we’d also encourage you to easily subscribe to the podcast through iTunes so you never miss an episode.

Q&A

Andrew Wallace: You were in Vancouver prior to the Olympics and I read your piece in Sports Illustrated. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the sense of discontentment that you experienced there before the Games.

Dave Zirin: I was there just a couple weeks before the start of the Games and what I found, walking around the streets and just talking to people is that it seemed to finally settle in on people just how much the Games were going to cost, how much of an inconvenience it was going to be, and just how shut out of the party a lot of them were going to be.

I spoke to one person who was so excited, and had been saving for a long time to go to one of the hockey games, just to find out that he wasn’t even close to what it would actually cost to get a ticket to go. That sense, you could see it just weighing on people in a really serious way. Also, this is a media term, the optics were just terrible. When I was there it was announced that funding for physical education programs were being cut, letters were going out to 800 teachers because of budget overruns. To have that on the front page of the local newspaper while the top flap was all about Olympics, Olympics, Olympics, happy, happy, joy, joy, it definitely bred a feeling of discontent.

Andrew Wallace: But do you think now, we’ve had the Games for the last two weeks and the hype machine got in motion and with the spectacle and excitement of it do you think that all of that will be forgotten?

Dave Zirin: Well it’s interesting; I think a lot of it was forgotten during the Games because there’s a rush. You’ve got so many people there and it’s such a big party, but if history is any guide, now is when you’re really going to get the second shoe dropping because the bill is going to come due. The amount of money, all the accounting is going to be on the table.

When Vancouver first got the games, one local politician said publicly that according to his figures and his estimates it would be a $10 billion influx of funds into the city. PriceWaterhouseCooper, the independent accounting firm, said right before the games started it would probably be more like less than a billion. That’s a huge drop off, now what are the final figures going to be? Once the dust is cleared and all the accounting tricks and obfuscation has been cleared off the table. That’s usually when you see politicians losing their chops, so we’ll see what happens.

Andrew Wallace: Right, one guy, Christopher Shaw with No2010, he said that he thought it would be the equivalent of the Montreal, maybe not equivalent in scope, but of the Montreal Olympics which everyone calls “the Big O” because I think with all the interest, they were still paying back over $100 billion in debt to the city.

Dave Zirin: Yeah that’s right, in Montreal, the lead up to the Games was similar. I mean it’s so interesting, you go back and you look at previous games and it’s always the same promises and it’s almost always the same results too. Before the Montreal Olympics a local politician said that Olympics cause deficits about as often as men have babies and yet, the Montreal Games of course, it didn’t get paid off until 2006. It took 30 years to pay off the debt. Will Vancouver be that bad? It’s hard to say, but one of the things is that the Olympics, and the financing of the Olympics, is always held hostage to the larger economic forces in society and in the world and I think that’s one of the things that really hurt in Vancouver is that this was the first “post-global recession” games and we’ll see what kind of effect that has in the long run.

Andrew Wallace: What do you think the implications could be for future Olympic events then, because I think what’s really interesting is what happened in Chicago recently, that their was such a backlash to that bid, right? So are we seeing a change in the tide there of how people feel about the Olympics?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, I mean I also think one of the things you’re going to see is the Olympics rely heavily on the BRIC countries and their satellites. By BRIC countries you know: Brazil, China, India (and Russia), and I think that their going to rely on countries where dissent can be smashed with as little publicity as possible and where a lot of these projects can be pushed through with as much hypocrisy as possible. I think that’s going to be the unfortunate future of the Olympic games unless we really do have international solidarity movements for people who want to keep the Olympics out and I think that’s going to be the only thing that leads to what I think is the only sensible solution for the Olympics which is to have a permanent winter and summer site and to eliminate the bid process all together.

Andrew Wallace: That’s interesting, what problems would that solve?

Dave Zirin: Well it would end the bidding process and that’s where you have the root of the IOC’s power and the root of a lot of corruption and lies that surround the Olympics.

See, the best way to understand it is that the IOC is like McDonalds headquarters and what they demand of every city is that they be a franchisee. That means if you’re a city and you decide say, democratically, through your city council that you’re going to have strings attached to the Olympic bid, that you’re going to have civil society at the table, that’s a favourite phrase, but at the end of the day though, if the IOC says “well, actually no,” then that’s just the way it is.

I spoke to a lot of people in Vancouver, very well meaning progressives who were pro-Olympics when they first heard about it, precisely because they got a ton of promises from local politicians about this seat that the table. But it was a mythical seat at the table and they became fierce Olympics opponents precisely because they were shut out of how a lot of the infrastructure spending would happen. And I think that’s the reality of the Olympics and if you had a permanent site it would just eliminate this kabuki theatre all together. Being on the International Olympic Committee would be little more than a ceremonial post, which is what it should be instead of what it is now, which is a position of a frightening power almost like a free-floating state with absolutely no oversight.

Andrew Wallace: And with charitable status right?

Dave Zirin: Yeah exactly, a non-profit that makes billions, I don’t even know how that works.

Andrew Wallace: So what do you think that means for say something like Rio? I mean, how does the progressive movement get in there and start speaking to the issues that could happen in Rio, because you know the things that are exacerbated by the Olympics are things like police corruption, political corruption and those are endemic problems in Rio right?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, huge issues in Rio with police brutality, huge issues of gentrification particularly the clearing of the favelas. I mean there’s already been a very dramatic gun battle where a police helicopter raided one of the favelas and someone in one of the favelas got a lucky shot off and the helicopter hit the ground—huge fire, explosion, right outside of Rio itself. I think the Rio example is going to be really interesting because, on the one hand you have a Brazil of that is ground zero to the World Social Forum movements in Porto Alegre, you’ve got the worker’s party in Brazil, that’s sort of on the one hand. But on the other hand, you also have the World Cup coming to Brazil just two years before the Olympics. They’re going to be able to push through a lot of the infrastructure, spending and policing that they need to do for the World Cup and that’s going to be interesting because it’s one thing to oppose the Olympics in Brazil. It’s another thing to oppose the World Cup. That might be a much tougher political needle to thread.

Andrew Wallace: That all being said, if we look at the Olympics that just happened, do you want to point out what you think your three most significant stories within the Olympics that went beyond the X’s and O’s of the field were?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, one, first and foremost, is the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luge slider, which really resulted from the fact that he and the other luge sliders had no access to be able to practice at Whistler because of Canada’s Own the Podium campaign. And the fact that the people who were in charge of the International Luge Federation, the FIL, they created this track up there in Whistler that, for a year, people have been warning about, that it’s too fast and it’s too dangerous, it’s too much like trying to turn luge into the X-games, some wacky spectacle of lightening speed.

So people were talking about it for a year, and the predictable happened, somebody died. And the Olympics just go on as if it didn’t happen, including NBC news, issuing a dictate to NBC sports to stop showing footage of Nodar’s death. They didn’t want it ruining the party. But it symbolizes so much of what’s wrong with the Olympics. The Olympics speak about standing for these ideals of ethics and sportsmanship, but in reality it’s “go for the gold all the way and go for network profits all the way,” and it’s an absolute farce. So that’s a big one is Nodar Kumaritashivili.

But there are other stories that complemented the Olympics as well. Not all of them are bad stories by any stretch. The other ones I would say though are like the protest movement that occurred, the fact that for all the debates and discussions about the protest movement, organized largely through the Olympic Resistance Network, I mean it was something that was an Olympic protest movement that was open, and out and on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, so they got a remarkable about of publicity and I think really put a marker in the ground for future cities.

So those are stories that I’m going to remember that took place off the field of play. Beyond that too, I’ll just throw another one out there, It was really quite shocking the amount of homophobia by broadcasters against U.S. skater Johnny Weir and how accepted it was. I mean, like broadcasters saying over the air that he should be gender tested, all kinds of things like that. That he was ruining figure skating. It’s just unbelievable; he wasn’t macho enough for figure skating? Are you kidding me? It’s just ridiculous; to have that amount of homophobia in figure skating just really set my eyes back.

Andrew Wallace: Were you impressed with how Weir came back? I thought his comments in the interviews after the original homophobic comments were made were quite interesting and quite strong.

Dave Zirin: Weir’s never been shy, that’s for sure. He’s never been shy, but I still regret he didn’t make it to the top five. He came in sixth, because Lady Gaga was going to come and perform, and be there in person, so that would have been a lot of fun. So we were denied that.

But I think it’s still an important story because of these issues. Particularly the issue of gender testing in Olympic sports, its something I’ve written a lot about in the last year with South African runner Caster Semenya being a part of that story and it’s something that the International Olympic Committee–you can tell they’re trying to shift away from it in a number of ways, but as of this interview we’re doing right now, I mean they still have a Neanderthal view of gender testing. Although they’re moving it away from having it in their rules that the idea of being a “man” is this inherent advantage in sport, which is at least somewhat of a step forward. They still operate on a very strict gender binary and haven’t quite figured out what to do with people who don’t fit into their little compartments.

Canada's women's Olympic hockey team pose with their gold medals after the winning game.

Guest blogger Canice Leung recently wrote in this space that Canada’s “national sport,” our beloved ice hockey, has became too elitist, too expensive and too inaccessible to maintain its position near to the top of the Canadian cultural hierarchy. Sparked by a fiery debate on Twitter the day before, her words were thought-provoking and insightful and her column provided an valuable perspective—one that those of us closely connected with the game often forget. And though I agree with the spirit of Leung’s argument, I have have to take issue with her conclusion, that hockey does not and should not represent this country.

She is right to point out that sport in Canada is a multimillion-dollar industry and that in certain respects it has become increasingly elitist and inaccessible. As Leung notes, higher-end ice skates alone can cost upwards of $600 and that’s just one piece of the bounty of expensive gear required to the play the sport at any level. Also, rinks are expensive to maintain, so ice-time is scarce and registration fees for youth hockey leagues are exorbitant. Just last week, the Greater Toronto Hockey League, the minor hockey association for the city that is supposed to the most diverse on earth, announced it would be doubling its fees next year. All the GTHL’s 512 teams will now pay $2000 to register a 16-player squad in order to cover the $500,000 hit the league expects to take with the introduction of the Harmonized Sales Tax in Ontario in July.

As Leung argued, circumstances like these make any sport—or any endeavour, for that matter—self-stratifying. Sure, there are bursaries, hand-me-downs and other equalizing measures out there. But with decreased accessibility comes increased elitism. More immigrants and second-generation Canadians may be filling roster spots in the game’s professional ranks. Yet there are also fewer opportunities for the less affluent to have a shot at playing the game at its highest level. For Leung, that means that when hockey is “put on a cultural pedestal, it demands a fairness and accessibility that befits the morals of the country it represents.”

But, for me, it’s still the national game.

The reason hockey needs to be more a more accessible and more equitable sport is precisely because it’s so deeply interwoven in our collective identity. Opening the sport to a wider, more diverse sample of Canadians will not only increase its already massive audience—10.3 million Canadians tuned in to the Olympic quarter-final against Russia; 21.5 million, nearly two-thirds of the country, for the gold medal match-up with the United States—and support other values we hold close, but also deepen the talent pool and make us that much better at, that much more connected, to our cherished national pastime.

When Leung writes that “in modern-day Canada, the idea that the sport represents us all seems anachronistic,” I think she may be missing the point. In today’s world, there is nothing that is going to perfectly represent us all. Hockey is for some, not for others. But the shared experience of sport can unite us and hockey is that shared experience for Canadians. The beauty of sport is that you don’t have to play it to take part in it—the Olympics final the perfect example of just that. It’s the overwhelming emotion and excitement coupled with hockey’s rich folklore that brings people together in one collective act. The fact that so many of us tune it on a nightly basis is what makes it ours.

Granted, it’s a shame the women’s game doesn’t get the attention it deserves—but that is true of all female sports and Canadian women’s hockey is probably in a better state than most. Plus, that culture is rapidly changing, particularly at the amateur level where more young and talented female athletes are playing competitive sports than ever before. They, too, share in the collective hockey experience and are increasingly becoming an active part in shaping it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t apply a critical lens to our national game, giving it a free pass simply because we love it. More access and more representation will only make our game bigger, better and more of a positive force in shaping Canada’s culture. Leung’s point is an important one and very well taken. But there’s still something distinctly Canadian about that good ol’ hockey game.