Thank you for visiting again for another post in the “O Canada” category.
I was born in the proverbial small town in the prairies, a railway town with a small population. But like many, maybe most, small prairie towns it had a hockey rink and a curling rink.
In Canada hockey and curling aren’t just winter sports that a small minority are interested in. In Canada talking about hockey and curling, especially curling in my family was “what we talked about”.
On my family curling team “growing up” my Dad was the skip, my Mom played third, and I played second and my brother was lead. We played in leagues every winter and it felt natural that we did; it was never even discussed as optional. I remember when I had my learners driving licence driving the family to the weekly games every Sunday night.
My father curled for over 50 years, and if my parents went away then my Grandparents “subbed” in for them.
I think for families all across Canada watching and playing curling some time in their lives is just normal and it’s definitely multigenerational.
It’s not uncommon for curlers to begin in their teens and curl until they are seniors!
Of the 1.5 million people in the world who have curled; 1.3 million of them live here in Canada.
(Canada used to dominate curling I think it would be fair to say but now there are many other countries on the podium. This year Canada won the Gold world curling championship trophy for women (Rachel Homan’s team out of Ottawa) and the men won Silver (Brad Gushue’s team from St. John’s).
Curling is definitely a world sport now and so winning both this year was really sweet!
But winter offers more than curling to Canadians – it also offers hockey.
When I was only 6 years old I had skates and I played on a team although my skating skills were something my Mom joked about for years. I guess it was more like snowshoeing the way I moved and all of us just bunched up around the puck.
My Dad even made an ice rink one year in the front yard which earned him the “super dad” title that winter.
As I grew up it was normal for winter to include these important items; toboggans, curling shoes and brooms, hockey skates and hockey sticks.
I love those roots and that I, like many other Canadians, look forward to winter because that’s curling and winter seasons!
I would remiss if I didn’t answer the question to the title of this post –
What was the “secret” other anthem I grew up with?
I think every boy I grew up with could hum the music to “Hockey Night in Canada” before they memorized the O Canada theme but it helped it was sung at every game♥
The opening bars of the Saturday night musical theme for “Hockey Night in Canada” are deeply imbedded in my memory and I am fairly confident that before I memorized “O Canada” – Hockey Night in Canada was my anthem, at least on Saturday night♥
Thanks for reading and visiting- ♥ David
Please enjoy the 30 seconds of opening music to Hockey Night in Canada!