Today’s sports culture is very different from just a few decades ago, let alone a century ago. Through technology, globalization and international cooperation, it’s become much easier to learn about people from different parts of the world. Yes, there’s tension at times, much of it manifested through national pride and fear, but overwhelmingly, the cultural divides that have been responsible for wars and prejudice are starting to erode, and will eventually collapse all-together, just like the Berlin Wall.
We have a very ethno-centric mentality at times, especially in the English-speaking world. Our language has directly impacted the way we behave, and how we treat others. The double-edged sword of this fact is that while many Americans may travel around the world with the assumption that everyone needs to know English to get ahead in the world – a position that frequently outrages the inhabitants of those countries, English is the global language. It is used in Air Traffic Control around the world, at the United Nations, and the Olympics.
With 18 year olds being born in 1990, the era of transition into the global community is coming to a close. Today’s children have no experience with the Cold War, or typewriters, or institutionalized racism. NAFTA has been around most of their lives. The events directly impact the state of sports in the world today.
The significance of the USA beating the USSR in 1980 is not as impactful today as it was in the 80s. Many Russians are among the best and most popular players in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin is a superstar that has single-handedly made Washington, D.C. into a hockey-crazed town. Think about that…a Russian athlete is THE star athlete in the capital of the United States of America.
Wow. That gave me chills…in a good way.
Using the Berlin Wall as an example, on November 8 , 2008, the New York Times featured Ice Hockey Helps Raze Berlin Wall in the Mind. The article described how a team that used to be in East Germany is about to begin playing in an arena built where the Berlin Wall used to stand. This team has been a source of unification of former adversaries. Children in America weren’t born in the days of East Germany vs. West Germany, East Berlin vs. West Berlin, USSR vs. NATO, but neither were the German children. Those facts are nothing more than a history lesson, but for the adults who clearly remember those days, this is nothing short of a miracle.
This type of cultural progress is happening all over the world with different initiatives to help connect people. Non-profits have been established by people from all walks of life, interested in using sports to affect those in less privileged regions. Roberto’s Kids is an organization using baseball and the inspiration of Roberto Clemente to positively affect children in third world countries. Right to Play is another organization using sports and play as a means towards improving health, teaching life skills, and fostering peace in disadvantaged areas of the world. Sports, it seems, is the common ground we can all start from.
Some professional teams have also invested resources into this outreach. I had the unique privilege to be heavily involved in Project Hope, an initiative of the New York Islanders to develop youth hockey in northeastern China. Directed by Team USA star Angela Ruggiero, Project Hope was uniting children from China with kids from around the world. In 2006, Project Hope hosted its first youth hockey tournament on Long Island, comprised of a team from Qiqihar, as well as three teams from the New York area. The tournament was an incredible cultural experience, and a great success!
A few weeks later, Angela and I went to China to visit each school affiliated with Project Hope. Unfortunately, for reasons I don’t want to delve into, these schools were provided bare-bone outdoor rinks in the middle of their school yard, minimal equipment, and very little training. Together, Angela and I were dedicated to blowing this program out. We spent 45 minutes on the ice showing the players and the coaches the basics, reinforcing the foundation of the game, but more importantly, we preached the culture.
Hockey is a sport that thrives on teamwork, sportsmanship, trust, accountability, and fun. What we found was that because of the distinct differences in the Asian culture – in particular Chinese culture – as compared to the Western World, players were being worked too hard, too long, and without an understanding of those virtues that hockey is based upon. We also noticed that coaches relied on the best players to assume dominance, but in hockey, the best players succeed by being the best teammates, whether it’s Gretzky, Lemieux or Crosby. To fix this, we showed them drills to enhance creativity, worked on passing, and ran more scrimmages. I also attempted (and failed) to do a summersault on the ice, trying to impart that nothing was out of bounds when it came to being creative and having fun.Let it be known, I was not in full equipment, only a track suit. Anyway, It helped! They were much better the following year at the 2008 tournament!
A year after this visit to China, at the end of 2007, I ran the next international youth hockey tournament for the Islanders, and saw firsthand how much better the Chinese kids improved. They were more relaxed on the ice, had much better team skills, better puckhandling (we showed them a toe-drag drill), and were starting to understand the value of fun in hockey. This was reinforced by the teams from New York and Finland. The kids from all 3 countries bonded immediately, sharing gifts, cheering for each other when they weren’t opposing on the ice, and trying cuisines of the other culture. This is what it’s all about! These kids are going to grow up and always cherish the tournament where they had fun playing against others from around the world, interacting on a personal level, and not caring who won the game, and who scored the most goals.
For the children Project Hope has touched in China, I can take pleasure in knowing that some of the kids I worked with are going to become professional hockey players in China, a country with less than 40 indoor ice arenas, and some of those kids will represent their country in the Olympics. Guaranteed. I hope those kids remember the experience they had interacting with kids from other countries and share the warmth, friendship, and happiness that people are trying to spread around the world through sports.
This is the calling I have been waiting for…to share happiness around the world, one puck at a time, using the sport of ice hockey as the language and culture to bond over. My first destination is Ladakh, a region in Kashmir, India running on solar energy and eco-friendly practices. Phey is a rural, Buddhist village in the Himalayas, looking for volunteers to teach the kids hockey before the ice melts in early February. More information can be found on my website, The Hockey Volunteer.
Stay tuned for more parts of The Cultural Impact of Sports
