War Games

It seems that the dominance of our species might have been forged from war. Around 40,000 years ago as anatomically modern humans emerged in Eurasia, a competitor of ours started to disappear. The Neanderthal, the continent’s once mighty inhabitant, could have plausibly been killed off in large part by our encroaching ancestors as they violently battled for the same resources. If we came from this sort of cut-throat environment, is it possible that we, Homo Sapiens need competition in society? Is sport just society’s ‘Theatre of War’?

Upper Canada, Lower Canada and The Old Firm

Canada’s early history saw both France (New France then Lower Canada) and England (Upper Canada) lay claims at one point to what is now modern day Canada with respective colonies². There was friction between these colonies and it didn’t come from nothing obviously, it was transplanted by the countries that controlled them. The French, Catholics, and the Protestant English had been warring on and off in Europe for centuries, racing around the new world to acquire wealth. The earliest colonization of Canada was no different, as both the French and English saw the abundance of resources available and jockeyed for early control. After New France (Lower Canada) was ceded to the English following the French and Indian War, we start to see the early formation of what will be the core of future Canada by the merging of these two colonies, or more appropriately, these two peoples, under British rule.

What started as a contentious relationship between the two colonies, softened eventually into what we know now as the modern provinces Ontario and Quebec within the common nation of Canada. Though Ontario and Quebec consider themselves friendly neighbours (for the most part) now with many shared interests, there are issues that still prevail from all those years ago that have to do with culture and language. It might be common to see language equality today in Canada for example, with French on all Government signs, food labels and consumer products, but it wasn’t always like that. Canadians who culturally identified as French had to fight for these rights through years of litigation in Canada’s Federal and Provincial Courts, finally culminating with the Canadian Multicultural Act of 1988.

Today then, it’s no surprise that a friendly, sort-of cultural rivalry exists between Ontario and Quebec, or Toronto and Montreal specifically. It seems to personify itself in red versus blue eight times a year and discussions about the excruciating details can be overheard in any coffee shop or pub across the country at almost any given time. In fact, it is largely considered one of the greatest rivalries in all of sport.

Hockey fans from this region will largely identify as a Toronto Maple Leafs fan or a Montreal Canadiens fan because that’s how they were raised, their adoration was ‘handed down’ to them by their parents, who learned it from their parents and so on. This again, is something that didn’t come from thin air. Traditionally in Canada, there were only two professional hockey teams to root for in a country full of hockey-mad Canadians. It was natural for the country’s Anglophones to root for the Leafs and the Francophones to root for the Canadiens, it’s who you identified with and what these teams ‘represented’ that had so much appeal. To be a Leafs fan is to be steeped in tradition and folklore from decades passed and ditto for Canadiens fans. One only has to look at the iconic children’s book The Hockey Sweater written by Roch Carrier to see just how ingrained these traditions are in Canadian society. It would be easy to assume that a Canadiens fan you meet has some French heritage in her family somewhere down the line then, and you would probably be right.

Another, more extreme example can be seen in Glasgow Scotland, where the rivalry of sport takes a more violent and serious form than its Canadian counterpart. The Old Firm Derby played by the city’s two biggest football clubs, Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers is a fiercely contested clash that extends further than just the match played on the pitch. Traditionally Celtic fans represent those in Scotland (as well as NIR and the ROI) who claim Irish heritage whereas Rangers fans deem themselves as ‘Loyalists’ (to the Crown). Typically it can be drawn down a religious line as well, whether you are a Catholic (Irish) or Protestant (English). While these exact ‘Catholic v. Protestant’ religious undertones traditionally existed in the Leafs and Canadiens rivalry, it is much less prevalent now.

For hundreds of years, the Irish have been at odds with the English over sovereignty issues (The Free Irish State was created in 1922, officially breaking from the UK in 1948 becoming a Republic). Suffering under British rule for so many generations led to a longstanding rift between those who culturally identified as Irish and those who culturally identified as English or British within the British Isles. It should be no surprise then that we see this conflict personified and played out in the most popular form of sport for the region then.

Because this conflict is much older and deeply seated in the collective psyche of the people of the British Isles and Ireland, the stakes seem much higher. Where in Canada you might see a Leafs fan and Canadiens fan engaged in some friendly banter over a beer, in Glasgow, the scenes are typically much tenser. It is not uncommon for religious taunting or violence to occur between these groups of supporters and many have died in skirmishes after games have taken place.

It might seem surreal to the average outsider that so much animosity could be generated from a hockey game or soccer match, between two groups of people who have likely never met each other. It is not until we start to closely examine the social parameters of sport that we begin to understand the deeper meaning of competition and why people feel the need to identify so closely to a regional team or group. Sport may serve a primal need within us to compete and conquer. Then again, it might just be an effective way for people to express themselves in a group with similar worldviews, or unabashedly hate someone for no apparent reason other than the color shirt they are wearing.