At first, I was so confused as to why we were gathered for a team that wasn't the Edmonton Oilers, and I was confused as to how Gretzky could possibly still play for Edmonton, if he was somehow also representing Canada. Sitting in Edmonton, Alberta, at home with my father and uncles, I recall watching that game like it was yesterday. On September 15, 1987, Canada played Russia in the final game of the Canada Cup, and in the dying moments of the game, two of Canada’s brightest stars – Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemeuix – combined for a goal that had hundreds of thousands of 8 year olds across the country look up and say: “wow.that was cool.” I know this, because I was once that 8 year old on a couch, watching along to a Canadian sports moment that would write itself in my memory and shape the way I felt about sports to this day. We had just witnessed a moment which could echo for decades to come.
That was cool!”Īnd then I smiled for the rest of the game because I knew that what had just happened on the pitch was very, very important.but what had just happened on a couch in a basement in Brampton (and hundreds of thousands of other couches all across Canada) was going to be as equally – if not more important. I stared at him, a bit shocked by what I had just seen, struggling to offer a much more nuanced analysis other than: “Yeah.that was. Those words were uttered by my 8-year-old son on October 13, 2021, after watching Alphonso Davies score a goal that several days later still defies our understanding of what is possible under the rules of modern sports science and belies belief.
8UIJCfFgM7- Waking the Red October 14, 2021
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