Remembering the Montreal Olympics of 76 Posted by João on 9:42 pm

Do you remember the Montreal Olympics of 1976? I do. The Montreal Olympics were the first Olympics I remember, mind you I remember them in black and white - colour TV's weren't market fixtures yet at that time in Portugal and I was still 3 years away from emigrating to Canada.

Now if there's one legacy of the Montreal Games that still remains, it's a little something that became a BIG something (in more ways then one) known as Le Stade Olympique de Montréal. Here it is below:

Now what you may or may not know is that the 76 Olympics were a financial disaster for Montreal, with the city ending up with a debt that would take 30 years to pay off. The incompetency of the city, in fact, lead to the Quebec provincial government having to take over construction when it became evident, a year before the games were to begin, that work had fallen behind schedule. One week leading up to the opening ceremonies, construction was still under way, and the tower, that had been projected for the stadium at its inauguration, was not completed until 1987.

Nicknamed The Big O as a reference to both its name and doughtnut-shaped opening in its roof (that was meant to have a retractable roof but has never come to fruition), the stadium was not completely paid off until December, 2006. The final expenditure (including construction, repairs, renovations, interest and inflation) amounted to $1.61 billion (cdn). Ironically, one year before it was paid off, The Big One was left tenentless after its only tenent, the Montreal Expos, moved south of the border to Washington. 

For the province of Quebec, the 76 Olympics thus left a financial legacy. For the world, however, the games left both political and some historical sports moments. In running some of these down they include:

- Taro Aso, a member of the Japanese shooting team, 32 years later would be elected as the prime minister of Japan.

- The daughter of the Queen of England, Princess Anne, competed in the games as part of the British equestrian riding team.

 

- 28 African nations boycotted the Games in response to the participation of New Zealand, a country whose national rugby team (the All Blacks) continued to play rugby with South Africa, a country that had been banned from the Olympic movement since 1964 due to its apartheid policies.

 

- The 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci who scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals, including the prestigious All-Around. Funny enough though, the score board could hold only 3 digits and the score was shown as 1.00 every time she pulled off a perfect 10.

 

- The Montreal Games would introduce the Bruce Jenner to the world, the decathlon gold medal winner in Montreal, today a facelift/plastic surgery lover.

 

Lets opt for a picture of Nadia Comăneci instead with her 1.00:

 

   

The Olympic flame also became "electronic" in 76, being transmitted via satellite from Athens to Ottawa by means of an electronic pulse derived from a acual burning flame. From Ottawa it then went by hand to Montreal. After a rainstorm doused out the flame a few days after the games opening ceremonies, an official relit the flame using his cigarette lighter. Organisers quickly doused it out again and relit it using a backup of the original flame.

The guy with the lighter then went up to the flame and lit a cigarette with the flame becoming the first to do such a thing. Ok this part I made up but it would've been something. And with the afros they had back then, you just know what the main thing going through the head of the guy in the above picture was, right? Lets keep that fire at a distance.

So in the end, the Soviet Union lead the medal count with a total of 125 medals, with the United States not even a close second with 94 medals. Canada pulled off 11 medals and Portugal two silvers. Wikipedia is wonderful ... as is the steeplechase!

 

Hot enough for ya? or, The eternal weather discussion... Posted by Gabriel on 10:19 pm

The weather.

I find that the weather was always a bit of an obsession in Canada, at least in my neck of the woods (south-western Ontario).

In the winter, if it snowed a lot or was very cold, it'd be front page news, in the summer, if it rained a lot or was hot, it’d be front page new.

At my parents’ house, we used to have The Weather Network on the TV for hours on end. In the kitchen it would be on as background noise whenever we were making dinner, as it was far more relaxing (some would argue informative as well) than CNN.

I always used to love the severe weather alerts that would come up once in a while, usually in the spring or summer at the height of the tornado season. We used to pride ourselves in being in the Tornado belt.

It'd give me a tingly sensation in my spine, like if we were close to the end of the world whenever the warning tone would sound and one of those blood red severe weather alerts would come up. You could almost feel the electricity in the air when a tornado or severe thunderstorm warning was announced.

And when the summer thundershowers would pass, as you'd step outside you would be greeted with clear skies and the sound of dripping water, with flashes of lightning and the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Later on you'd have a breathtaking sunset in hues of violet and red.

Though summer also brings allergy alerts and UV warnings.

In the winter, seeing the Arctic front coming down was always a bit depressing, that spelled cold snaps and wind chill warnings and having to plug in the block heater.

When I moved to Portugal, invariably any phone call with my parents would include a weather report, including local humidity and wind chill. They would, of course, expect the same from me.

Unfortunately, Portugal's weather isn't very temperamental (ha!). I can count on one hand the number of thunderstorms I've experienced here, and have only seen snow once, most of the year the weather is either sunny or rainy.

We may not talk about anything else, but we'd always talk about the weather.

The Québec Winter Carnival vs. the Portuguese Carnival Posted by João on 10:07 pm

Right from the get-go, when the French first colonised New France (what is now Quebec), they created a rowdy tradition of getting together just before Lent to eat, drink and be merry. The custom of celebrating sometime around mid-February has long been popular.

The first officially recognised large winter Carnival in Québec City, however, took place in 1894. Often faced with winter’s hardships, the city's population reinvented the popular tradition of carnival brought from France with a winter celebration that celebrates exactly that - winter. In 1954, in the context of the economic development of Québec City, a group of business people started to commercialise the festivities. That year, Bonhomme (to the right) was born and elected the event’s representative. The first official edition of the Québec Winter Carnival took place the following year, in 1955. Since then, the Carnival has snowballed into an undeniable manifestation for the entire Québec City population, having become an important vehicle for tourism and economical activity in the city. As well, from one winter to the next, the Carnival has enriched its activity program, having added a number of more popular activities that includes winter sports, snow sculptures, and activities based on the traditional Québec lifestyle, such as canoe races and dogsled races. Check out the Ice Palace put up every year below. Today the Québec Winter Carnival is the largest winter carnival in the world, and is third on the list of top carnivals worldwide, after the famous carnivals in Rio and New Orleans.

Ok, now we know that this blog is all about Canadians in Portugal, where these two countries coexist as much as possible. That said ... the Portuguese Carnival. First off, it's worth pointing out that the Portuguese carnivals of yesteryear were not exactly like todays, as missing were the scantily clad dancing girls a la the Brazilian Carnival (we must not forget that at the time of the Carnival in Brazil, it's summer, not exactly the same here, brrrr...). Yes images like the one below are typical to Ovar, Torres Vedras, Loulé and many other carnival-loving Portuguese towns.

The traditional Portuguese Carnival is more about people getting dressed up, often with masks, and making fun of each other and playing tricks on each other. It's also all about mocking public figures like what you see on the left below. Yes that's Cavaco Silva, the Portuguese President of the Republic right up front and former Portuguese PM José Socretes in the back as well. Sometimes, however, public figures themselves show-up to even mock themselves. Yes that's Madeira's Alberto João Jardim below on the right. He's a regular at the Carnival in Funchal year in, year out.

Now this year we all know that Passos Coelho is cutting back on the Carnival. For that reason, this upcoming Tuesday will not be as lively as the rest of the carnival-loving world. So enjoy yourself Québec. Maybe we here in Portugal will join you again next year on a Tuesday, or that year after that, or the year after that, ...

Canadian encounters with wildlife Posted by João on 6:54 pm

Canada is full of wildlife, there's little arguing that. In fact, it is quite common for Canadians to encounter their forest friends in their yards, for example, or simply walking down the street. Surely the friendly deer in the front yard, like the one seen below, is always a pleasant and adorable surprise. Look how cute Bambi looks eating the flowers.

Still, not all encounters with the forest creatures are that way. Take, for example, this sort of encounter below. Not really sure if running inside to get some feed is the right thing to do.

Nor is this a good reaction either, as funny as it may look.

Of course this all depends on your relationship with these sorts of animals. I just recently watched the Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man about a fellow named Timothy Treadwell who used to live among the grizzlies in Alaska, until one day (I won't spoil the ending for you). But his story is not the only one. Charlie Vendergaw was been living among bears in Alaska for over 20 years and he says it's the bears that search him out (http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=5288312#.Tza-d1x7pbk). And then there's Montana native Casey Anderson and his pet grizzly and best buddy Brutus who Anderson raised since the bear was a baby. Here they are together:

Now those who don't know any better would look at Anderson and Brutus and think 'bears are just so cuddly and cute'. Not quite. Wildlife experts will tell you that bear attacks are rare; as long as we avoid them, they'll avoid us. Yes they may be rare, but every year you hear about somebody being mauled, especially so in Canada. Attacks are often for predatory, territorial or protective reasons, or in other words, they often happens due to human encroachment, with victims often being hikers, hunters, and campers, and other times those who take up residency in wilderness areas. In other words, some folks just don't try hard enough to avoid these creatures.

Being brought up in Canada, from an early age we are taught to hit the ground and pretend we are dead if we ever encounter a bear because if we do, this is what the bear's going to think:

If you are in Canada, however, and you do want to start up a relationship with wildlife, it's more then obvious that the moose is your best choice for a companion. If you need evidence, just have a look at these four:

One piece of advice, however, just don't take them hunting.

Hockey poem week - the recap Posted by João on 6:44 pm

Hockey's place in Canadian culture is closer to religion than a simple sporting pastime; a unifying force in a country of 33 million people that, let the truth be told, is often split by politics and language. There is little arguing that the game is part of the national identity, a rite of passage between fathers and sons and, in the present day and age, between mothers and daughters as well. We all know that generations of Canadians grew up listening to Hockey Night In Canada on the radio, for example, and decades later the Saturday night tradition continues intact on high-definition television.

Surely the NHL is the sporting league that must be followed and every town has it's junior hockey team that is often the pride of the community as well. Still, the game goes beyond fandom and community pride. Tell me if this doesn't sound familiar: 'We had a hockey rink in the park. Every afternoon after school, my friends and I would head there and play until the sun went down'; or maybe this: 'The kids who lived on my street, we'd play street hockey almost everyday after school through winter'. Hockey games at the local rink or on the street brought kids from all ages together to partake in “pure happiness”. I do, however, question if this can be said in relation to today's generation, or if technology is robbing todays youth of this sort of comradery. As the popular saying goes: 'Street hockey is great for kids. It's energetic, competitive and skilful, and the best of all, it keeps them off the street'.

Generally speaking, however, Canada's love for hockey is hard to put into words non-Canadians can relate to, and the fanaticism may be hard for people outside of Canada to understand. I guess it might be similar to the way Brazilians feel about soccer but with one exception - the fact that the passion felt towards hockey in Canada brings with it a bit of lunacy. I'd like to see Brazilians go out for a game of road soccer when it's -20ºC.

And thus it is here where the uniqueness of the game lies as far as connecting to a people and a country is concerned. Hockey is not so much the image of Canada as it is the image of Canadians - hard, touch, sentimental, fun and, of course, uniting; and everyone, from coast to coast to coast, idenitifies with that. So that said, I will finish this so-called 'hockey poem week' with a quote by the Canadian author and humorist Stephen Leacock that goes like this:

"Hockey captures the essence of the Canadian experience in the New World. In a land so inescapably and inhospitably cold, hockey is the chance of a life, and an affirmation that dispite the deathly chill of winter we are alive".

... just as hockey is alive in us wherever we end up going.

Hockey poem week - Poem 6 Posted by João on 3:40 pm

Truly as it always was, your neighbour was your goalie or our goal scorer, but nobody was ever a defensemen. No glamour in defending. It was always about scoring picturesque goals and making game-winning saves. It was about making memories and in some cases, re-enacting them.

The Goalie Who Lives Across the Street - Gordon Downie

Jean Beliveau's welcome any time
at the outdoor rink
in the park
just across from my house
for morning hockey under blue skies
this winter.
Birds wheeling overhead
Russian temperatures
lousy to no gear.
I'm the Goalie Who Lives Across the Street.

Kids play with smokes hanging out
of their mouths;
beautiful puck hogs
with incredible tricks.
They are so easily fatigued,
they take a break after every rush.
Old-timers heckle:
"Hey, Jim Carroll. Pass the puck."
They don't get it.

No literary pretensions allowed.
Two minutes for
"I saw his blood,
a billowing crimson cloud
against the milk white ice."
That's an infraction here.

When the predatory follow the puck
down to the other end
my net swarms like the Great Barrier Reef
with the smaller fish.
My crease fills with good questions
and wobbly wrist shots
(there are no bad questions, only bad wrist shots).

And then there are
the parents
always yelling
always telling them
where to aim.

At the rink across the street
Gerry Cheevers is welcome any time.

Hockey poem week - poem 5 Posted by João on 12:59 am

There are those who play and there are those who just like to watch. Here in Portugal we are limited to watching and even that's recent ... but thank goodness for it. Playing not so much but it would be good to change that so we too could get ourselves ...

In Shape - Stephen Scriver

just to move, man
feel those muscles stir again
long summer of beer and sun

just to move
hear the old heart pounding
full of one more season

feel the body burst again
charged with easy sweat

two weeks of up, down
up, down
backwards, forwards

blows that whistle, man
sounds like music now it's easy

... move, man
only six strides down now
blue/white/red/white/blue/white
around the net
leg over leg
and blue/white/red ...

lungs smooth with swelling breath
legs pump push that ice again

ah, but just to move

Hockey poem week - poem 4 Posted by João on 7:15 pm

Who among us growing up in Canada didn't grow up on road hockey? Who among us didn't pretend we were 'Rocket' Richard, Guy LaFleur, Wendel Clark or Wayne Gretzky? Every generation had its hockey idols and today's still do. No matter how cold outside, a round up of friends for a game of road hockey kept us warm.

Road Hockey – Bruce Meyer

The middle of my journey,
as the train shakes,
I wake from a dream
about my childhood
where I saw the boys
I played hockey with
on the frozen streets
beneath purple dusks.
Snow had settled
on the brown furrows
of the fall ploughings
the way a dusting of ice
clung to our corduroys
as we shouted and raved
in a dead-end street,
pushing and hacking
each other’s spindly legs
until the night descended
blackening the game
and calling us home
to those tiny rooms
taped with clippings
of Howe and Hull
and silver grails.
I wanted to go back there,
wanted to dream again
of what I would become
but only become
the things I am
regardless of the dreams.
And as I woke just now,
at some point in a journey
I realized we’d all
become grown men,
and the waking, not the growing
left me angry. Snow whirls
by the coach car window,
still clings to the furrows
of pantlegs and fields
as the journeymen continue on
their battles of earthly overtime
and the sudden darkness

after.

Hockey poem week - poem 3 Posted by João on 1:03 pm

The term "pond hockey" is often used, especially in Canada, as a synonym to Shinny. It is meant to describe any form of disorganized ice hockey that is played outdoors, typically on a naturally frozen body of water. In fact, before hockey, there was shinny. Frozen lakes, frozen rivers, frozen ponds, frozen backyard rinks - all conducive to the game of hockey. The documentary film Pound Hockey is a must see for any enthusiast of Canada's game, and you can see it here free of charge: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/pond_hockey.

Shinny - Dale Jacobs

Days of shinny, we played pick up games for into the night
until our feet were numb, toes feeling like they would snap off,
fingers rubbing through socks soaked with sweat, kneading
the feeling back, ready for another period in the never ending
game past the moment's break.

Spring when the ice got slushy, bumps grew along the boards
where water dripped from the metal roof, deep winter when ice
was burned to a ghostly white, hard, unforgiving, knees elbow
bruides to a fine black, shaving rising from stopping skates,
a delicious arc of ephemera.

Half-cylinder of corrugated steel, oversize machine shop becomes
a rink, men of the town coming in from the field, tractors giving
way to hammers and saws and arc welders, coming together for
us, for skating, for games of hockey on cold Canadian winter
nights that seemed to last forever.

Sitting in this southern town, no nights cold enough to frost your
moustache, I wonder if anyone knows who built our rink or what it
meant, if anyone skates or plays hockey long into the night, giving
themselves over to the game, surrendering to air thick with cold,
breath suspended for just a moment.

Hockey poem week- poem 2 Posted by João on 11:54 pm

It’s one of those beautifully frigid winter nights that inspire poets. The skies are clear and the light from the moon illuminates the backyard. Fireplace smoke rises straight into the air and hangs motionless over the suburban outpost. The noise of metal on ice and the clacking of sticks rule here, in this time-honoured tradition.

Rink - Raymond A. Foss

After Minnesota’s lakes
in the winter of ’71,
it was no big deal
but for us it was
it was something we did together
dad, mom, and us some plastic, boards to frame the edge
and a thin film of ice added layer by layer, day by day
brittle pockets of air, deep solid parts and ragged places
where the lawn dipped, sloped draining the hose after each time,
so it wouldn’t fill setting lights to shine on our practice
under the stars and moon
using it after school too; but mostly at night,
watching mom figure skate and dad teaching us hockey
before the lure of skiing changed our winter sport.

Hockey poem week - poem 1 Posted by João on 7:13 pm

I recently came across a book called Going Top Shelf An Anthology of Canadian Hockey Poetry edited by Michael P. J Kennedy, a university professor who in 2001 put together a course on Canadian ice hockey literature at the University of Saskatchewan. Having been inspired by Kennedy's book, and given my own interest in Canadian culture; hockey and poetry has come to occupy my reading interest of late. That said, this week I'm going to be offering up a few poems, some of my favourites that I've come across on ice hockey in Canada. Here's the first:

Hockey - Jane Siberry

Winter time and the frozen river Sunday afternoon
they're playing hockey on the river
Rosie... he'll have that scar on his chin forever someday his girlfriend will say "hey, where...?"
he might look out the window... or not
you skate as fast as you can
'til you hit the snowbank (that's how you stop)
and you got your sweater from the catalogue
you use your rubber boots for goal posts
ah...walkin' home
don't let those Sunday afternoons
get away get away get away get away
break away break away...
this stick was signed by Jean Belliveau
so don't fucking tell me where to fucking go
...oh Sunday afternoon
someone's dog just took the puck
he's buried it it's in the snowbank ....your turn
they rioted in the streets of Montreal
when they benched Rocket Richard it's true
don't let those Sunday afternoons
get away get away get away get away
break away break away break away break away
the sun is fading on the frozen river
the wind is dying down
someone else just got called for dinner
Rosie!
hmm...Sunday afternoon.

Proud to be Portuguese Canadian - the event(s) Posted by João on 5:31 pm

For those Portuguese-Canadians who hail from the province of British Columbia, the name Terry Costa is one a lot of people got to know over the years. In Vancouver, when it came to community activism and participation within the Portuguese community, Terry (on the right) was, and in many ways still is, the poster boy of many initiatives. These days he calls the Azores home, although he still does a lot of traveling back and forth between Canada and the islands.

Presently, through his production organisation Mirateca Arts,Terry has set out on one of his bigger ventures yet when it comes to the Portuguese in Canada. Aimed primarily at Portuguese descendant youth, Terry is the man behind the initiative Proud to be Portuguese Canadian (PtbPC), an initiative that sets out a number of objectives that include: 1.) stimulating young professional luso-descendants, students, their families and colleagues in discovering the Portuguese culture of today; 2.) strengthing links between the Portuguese in Canada and the Canadian social, cultural, political and economic life; 3.) promoting Portuguese culture through the presentation of artists and other cultural agents; and 4.) expressing pride in being Portuguese-Canadian.

A series of PtbPC events will take place in Toronto during a 10 day period, from March 15th to the 25th, kicking off with a ‘not your regular kind of conference’ conference on Saturday, the 17th at the Mod Club Theatre, featuring special guests, among them Portuguese-Canadian celebrity chef extraordinaire, Carmen Correia, as well as presentations, talk-backs and more.

As well, the PtbPC initiative inviting members of his community to submit their “Proud to be Portuguese Canadian” videos to a video contest aimed at bringing greater invisibility to the heritage of Portuguese descendants residing in multicultural Canada. Videos can be sent via email to proudtobeportuguesecanadian@gmail.com or uploaded on YouTube with the link then sent in to the same e-mail address. The person who’s video gets the most views wins him or herself a cool ‘grand’ (aka $1000.00).

The PtbPC project is also a media partner with Canadian Music Week (CMW) and Missão Canadá: Mission Canada that, this year, are presenting a special "Focus on Portugal" session at the Slacker Canadian Music Fest, showcasing a series of music acts from Portugal. This year’s CMW will run from March 21st to 25th and will feature among the 100’s of music acts, a couple of hand fulls from Portugal, including Setubal’s Mazgani, Porto’s masked men Blasted Mechanism, Braga’s Peixe:Avião, among others…

So there you go, if you’re in Toronto come the month of March, this is something worth taking in. Leave you with a couple of fun promotional posters for the event which also contain the website where you can go to get more info.