1-16-07: Canucks 4, Canadiens 0 (Buddhism for Hockey Fans)

It is said that when Siddhartha Gotama, after many years of struggle and asceticism, finally attained enlightenment, he realized four things. These, he told the first monks, are not mere theories or ideas, they are Truth, the only real Truth in the universe, and thus they are called the Four Noble Truths. To accept them, to understand them, and to live by them, this is the way to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth, this is the way to the attainment of Nirvana.

Some say that the central function of any religion is theodicy, to reconcile the concept of a fundamentally orderly and benevolent universe to the human experience of chaos and evil- or, more simply, to explain why bad things happen to good people. I am not a Buddhist, and have never really believed that the function of religion is explanatory, but somehow, when I find myself confronted with inexplicable pain in life, my thoughts bend towards the Four Noble Truths.

Watching the Montreal Canadiens has, of late, become a deep source of inexplicable pain. Their hockey has turned into one giant open sore and every game just seems to rub salt deeper into it. It’s getting terribly painful to watch, and the pain is inexplicable not only because there is no good reason for the team’s increasingly spectacular implosion, but because there is really no good reason why anyone should be hurt by a group of men’s failure to knock a piece of rubber around with sufficient skill. Yet I find myself watching tonight’s game, aching all over like my best friend just walked out of my life, and asking, Buddha, what do I do?

The Buddha said:

1. Life is suffering. As the Montreal media will no doubt remind everyone repeatedly, the Habs have now played 132 consecutive minutes of hockey without scoring a single goal. Their special teams have collapsed, their goaltending is shaky, and their best players can’t seem to generate a single solid minute of offense. Even for the most optimistic, generous-hearted fan, there’s been precious little that’s been good lately. Even before this loss there was a terrible feeling in the air. The lines are in disarray, Carbonneau is throwing public fits in front of a voracious media, Rivet and Samsonov are scratched and irate about it, Murray has been put on waivers, there are mysterious pre-game conferences between selected players and the mangagement, and we know this is only the beginning. The Habs Inside/Out blog said tonight that the Canucks could ‘smell blood in the water’. Screw Vancouver- in spite of their angry-fish logo, they weren’t the most significant threat facing the Habs before this game and they certainly aren’t now, they’re just going to take their two points, smile, and leave town. The real problem is that Montreal can smell blood in the water, and we’re worse than tiger sharks. Nothing short of a huge trade, a miraculous winning streak, or the nuclear annihilation of all North America is going to quell the building criticism. One wonders, in fact, how on earth the Habs have survived previous seasons worse than this one, when the anger is so red and venomous after only two weeks of badness. But the point is that now, officially, everything sucks, and it’s a miserable moment to be a Habs fan. Life is suffering.

2. The root of suffering is attachment. This situation is only painful to me because I am attached to the Canadiens. If I were attached to the Leafs, or the Senators, no doubt I would be enjoying all of this immensely, but of course then I would only be trading this suffering for other varieties at different times. Sens fans suffered in a similar way, from a nasty slump, early in the season, and Leafs fans probably suffer all the time from, well, being consistently awful and almost universally hated beyond their own borders. So the more general principle is that attachment to a hockey team, any hockey team, will eventually cause pain.

3. The cessation of attachment is the cessation of suffering. This is the point at which we are confronted with a choice. The obvious strategy for ending the pain is to detach oneself from the offending team, or, as they say, to jump off the bandwagon. To detach from the team is not necessarily to abandon the sport, for hockey is not the root of suffering. When viewed from a non-partisan perspective, every hockey game is beautiful, the only thing that ever makes it painful to watch is the investment in the success or failure of a particular team. To be a detached hockey fan might indeed be a kind of nirvana, it may be the only way to see the game clearly, truthfully, compassionately. But, just as with Buddhist detachment from all worldly things, the price of detachment from a team is high, because it means also the sacrifice of love, of desire, of community, and of that irreplicable adrenaline-surge that comes from an irrational but intimate identification with one particular group of guys and their particular experience. As strong as the desire to avoid the pain is, as much as all of us want to jump off the bandwagon at some moment or other, as much as we curse and insult and mock the team and all its constituent parts, as much as we may say we’re leaving and never coming back, few among us have the will to truly detach. That same thing that leads us to be fans in the first place makes us unsuited for objectivity and asceticism- we are nothing if not our desires, and our affections, and our attachments. So here I part ways with the Buddha- for him, enlightenment; for me, bitter morning coffee and moaning over the Gazette, more afternoons wasted on dreaming up hypothetical lines, more anxiety, frustration, anger, and pain, and hopefully, someday soon, a team that will thrill me again. But in the meantime, the fourth Truth:

4. There is a way to the cessation of suffering. There are, the Buddha said, eight principles by which the good life is lived, and through which suffering can be overcome. The Eightfold Path, hockey-fan version:

1. Right Understanding: I will not believe that I know more about hockey than professionals who have devoted their entire lives to it.

2. Right Intention: I will accept that the role of a fan is primarily to be positive, or at least constructive, in regards to the team with whom I associate myself.

3. Right Speech: I will refrain from gratuitous or personal insults (unless they're particularly clever) directed at my team or those individuals associated with it, at least until such time as they are associated with a different team.

4. Right Action: I will keep watching, keep cheering, and keep defending my team, even when they are playing disgustingly.

5. Right Livelihood: While recognizing that tasteless smack-talk is the right and privilege of every hockey fan, I will not take excessive joy in the injuries, personal crises, slumps, or bad luck of other teams and their players.

6. Right Effort: I will strive to be sympathetic towards players, even bad ones, because they are the substance of the team, and also because it’s not like I could do any better.

7. Right Mindfulness: I will remember that the season is 82 games long and that many things, both bad and good, will happen in it, and moreover, that there will be other seasons in the future, and more moreover, that there are many other varieties of hockey out there to watch and play and obsess over.

8. Right Concentration: I will see that hockey is always beautiful and amazing, and that there is much to love in even the worst game.

I had specific comments on this game, on the whole sordid situation, but it seems that I’ve Buddhism-ed myself out of complaint and criticism for the time being. Anyway, I rather doubt that any incisive points I might have made about this particular game have a rapidly approaching expiration date. They’ll probably be just as relevant come Thursday as they are now. Summary: Another ugly game, another ugly loss, more problems than I could name in a hundred posts a hundred times as long as this one, and yet I still love the damn Canadiens.