Raptors’ playoff run showcases diversity of Canadian sports fandom

I might as well get this out of the way, because many of you are thinking it and somebody has to do it: yes, it is true that as of Saturday night, as many Canadian teams have made it to the NBA Finals as they have to the Stanley Cup Finals since 2011 and — yes – it’s true that there are seven Canadian-based NHL teams compared to just one NBA team: the Toronto Raptors.

And if the Raptors somehow pull this off, at a time when the last Canadian Stanley Cup champion was crowned in 1993 — two years before the Raptors were founded? Nah. Let’s not go there. Or 1967 and all that…

Admit it, Canadian basketball fans. That is a large part of the reason why this all feels so special. Canadian baseball fans have been there: the feeling that hockey, no matter what it is but especially the NHL, drives the sports media agenda in this country, in terms of coverage and churn. Winning back-to-back World Series titles really changed nothing. Nor would a Raptors title. Soccer. Amateur sports. Every four years or so it seems as if we adopt a whole bunch of athletes in sports to which we don’t otherwise pay attention. We become living room experts in the 200-metre butterfly or 4 x 100-metre relay or bobsleigh or god knows what else and then — poof! Like a Giannis Antetokounmpo free throw it… just… kind of…

Disappears.

And then it’s hockey season all over again. Or, “worrying about hockey” season.

We are a vastly different country than we were back in the days when you played hockey in the fall and winter and baseball in the summer in and around swimming lessons; different economically and socially. We are more diverse, more complex, and even just a cursory glance at the world of sports makes it easy to find Canadians dominating — not just making up the numbers — in sports other than hockey.

#raptors one game away from the #nbafinals and the moment we had a surprise scrum with @drake @CityNews @680NEWS pic.twitter.com/TgNeVfzw5I

— Lindsay Dunn (@LindsayDunnTV) May 24, 2019

Basketball is in a particular period of growth, especially in urban centres. We’ve always played hoops here, of course: every high school had a program and when I started covering sports at the Winnipeg Free Press in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the University of Manitoba men’s and women’s basketball programs were a staple of the sports pages. The Wesmen Classic, a tournament held over the Christmas holidays, was a significant event on the local and regional sports calendar.

So it’s not like basketball is a new thing. Bill Wennington, my guy Leo Rautins, Todd MacCulloch… they were Canadian-born NBAers. Canadians have played at major U.S. college programs for decades.

So here’s the thing to remember at a time when the Raptors will go head-to-head with yet another Stanley Cup Final that doesn’t involve Canadian teams: this really isn’t a referendum on whose sport is better or more Canadian or dying or growing or anything. The success or lack of success of a pro team in your sport says nothing about the strength of your sport across the country. Canada has and is changing and, hopefully, will always change. This week might represent a further evolution, which is only a good thing. Surely in a country this big there’s room for all.