Arts
I’m indifferent. I guess that is the best word I have, and, surely, it can be argued that this is the worst type of being. To have no passion, no hate, no love, no opinion of one thing or another. To simply be uninterested, so much so, that you care not to know. Actually, there is no “care”--it just is what it is. I am rarely indifferent. Throw a topic out there and some type of emotion will wither its way out of me: Climate Change, United States Foreign Policy, NAFTA negotiations, Tax Reform, the supply-management system, French only signs in Quebec’s National Parks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Oh, yes, there is deep hatred for that one. If you name it I can definitely sort out an opinion. I can state, ever so matter of factly, that there is no greater indifference than the indifference that U.S Sports broadcasters on ESPN or TNT have towards the Toronto Raptors. To be up front, NBA Basketball and the Toronto Raptors is my primary form of escapism. For a year now, I have fully committed myself to being a true and knowledgeable fan. Last year, I rarely missed watching a game. I kept the computer on while they went through that dreadful stretch from February to March. I learned to appreciate as they fell behind by twenty points and then pushed out the young guys to try to provide a spark. Sure there’s Kyle Lowry and Demar Derozan, but I was interested in the folks on the bench like Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, and Fred VanVleet. Instead of paying the exorbitant prices to watch a Raptors game we hung around young families and watched a D-League Game in Mississauga. I started watching interviews with the players, the general manager, Masai Ujiri, and the coach, Dwane Casey. I stayed up to date during the offseason keeping track of who was being traded to whom and the implications those trades and others had on the league itself. Through all this time I realized one thing--the US was indifferent to the Raptors. I would watch Inside the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson, and Shaquille O’Neal. Whether it be through the regular or post-season the Raptors were just a footnote--an obligatory mention. They would spend more time, much more time, talking about teams who weren’t nearly as good or consequential to the season itself. And, when they did mention the Raptors they only ever talked about Derozan and Lowry, as if they were the only two on the team. Frankly, I think if you asked them to name the Raptor’s roster, they would only know perhaps four or five players. Yesterday, I listened to an in-depth conversation with Masai Ujiri on the US based Bill Simmon’s Podcast. Simmons spent most of the interview asking the Raptor’s General Manager to comment on players outside of the Raptor’s franchise, and then near the end Masai asked, “Have you ever visited Toronto?” Simmon’s responded, “Ah, no, I haven’t.” And, perhaps, that is at the crux of the indifference. Sports teams are so often wrapped up in the cultural identity of the city. What is Regina without the Roughriders or Montreal without the Canadians? If you do not know the city then perhaps it’s harder to care about the team. If we do not attempt to create a relationship if we do not ask the question, “Why should we care?” then what are we missing by choosing to not know. Which brings us to this week’s episode, “The indifference to an always has been, but shouldn’t be, humble liquid.” When it’s use is often so industrial and so woven in the fabric of our everyday we can often take it for granted. Even more so it can be denigrated; it’s value no longer appreciated, because we do not know what it was like to not have it. I believe that this is such a case. So much so, that I wish not to even say the word, because that alone would make it appear unworthy of our time and attention. So, let’s not say what it is we are talking about. Instead, let’s be introduced to it as if we had never encountered it before.