Checkers

I’ve been a hockey fan all my life. 

Growing up just beyond the shadow of the Canadian Rockies, a life in and around hockey

is just what we do.

And the Olympics made me sad.

I’m not mad, just disappointed 

Never meet your heroes.

I grew up thinking hockey players were good guys, just out there, playing a game, living the dream.

oh, you sweet summer child

I know a lot of them are decent humans.

Albeit as interesting as a slice of buttered toast, controversial as a bag of pretzels.

We look to the famous, the stars in our eyes, to rise above.

Like Ali, and Kaep. Legends, who chose to use their platform and take a stand.

Whether justified or not, we ask them to use their lofty perch to push us all toward a more just world. Not just charity, but change.

Perhaps we are misguided. At the very least, we can ask them, at a bare minimum, to err on the side of kindness.

You’re playing a game, you know

As it turns out, growing up in an entitled, privileged, and whitewashed world entrenches biases.

And enables misogynistic buffoonery.

Who knew?

In these truculent times, the MAGA refrain has been to ‘keep your politics out of my sports’. Kaepernick? Out of line.  Black Lives don’t Matter here, unless they’re scoring touchdowns (and even then it’s a temporal, superficial love). Pride Nights? Keep your woke crap away from my rink.

Keep your (I mean your) politics out of my sports.

Unless, we win.

Then, we have our trophy of young athletes

paraded 

a white bread and sno-ring circus

Because, winning trumps all

These young beavises and buttheads kiss the ring, pounding beers with the Frat Boy In charge, squarely aligned

on the wrong side of history

I want to say they are pawns, manipulated, and like all useful tools, eventually tossed aside. But I won’t extend that much credit to the peeling orange. Chess, a cerebral endeavor,

is beyond him.

They are checkers, soon to be tossed behind the well-worn sofa when no longer amusing or useful.

I’m not sad, I’m just disappointed

At the end of the tournament, and at the end of the day

There are larger things at stake.

Like families, and futures, and hope.

And you, young he-roes,

are blind to what should be as clear as day.

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