Christina Stalteri article in Macleans: Playing and cheering for Canada abroad

[nolando]

http://moments.macleans.ca/moments/playing-and-cheering-for-canada-abroad/

[beachesl]

Well spoken Cristina!

What a gal!

[Joe MacCarthy]

Must read material. Mrs S comes through again... Queen of the Soccer Moms. This is a class in Voyageurs 101. Mrs S deserves a

coconut slice for this.

Mrs S's essay should also be immortalized in the Voyageurs history thread.

[ob1]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

[red card]

"He showed me how representing your country is a privilege and also a duty."

Hope this sinks in for current & especially future NT players.

[Joe MacCarthy]

"He showed me how representing your country is a privilege and also a duty." Hope this sinks in for current & especially future NT players.

I doubt it. Rose Kennedy (matriarch of the Kennedy clan) had a saying (paraphrased from the Bible) "To whom much is given, much is required" Many payers make huge salaries, stay in the best hotels are well fed and live the lives of rock stars.

Unfortunately some feel they don't have a duty to give back. Give back to the soccer mom who cut the oranges and drove the players to practice, to the people who maintained the equipment and fields, to the volunteers who organized the schedules, and the coaches who helped teach proper skills. There is a duty to give back.

Where's my violin?

[Razcle]

Wow. Great Article. Sent shivers down my toes. Congrats to the Stalteri's for their many successes, especially Paul.

Da Da da da da da Paul Stalteri.

[Footscray]

So great. Thanks for sharing and thanks Stalteris!

[RJB]

My Defining Canadian Moment is:

Playing and cheering for Canada abroad

By: Christina Stalteri, Ontario

I was born in Canada to immigrant parents and at a young age I was taught how to successfully co-exist in a multicultural nation while still being supportive of our “other nationality”.

To a certain extent, I do not think it ever occurred to me how Canadian I really was. I really began to feel Canadian when I moved away from the place I had always called home.

I have lived abroad for over 12 years and strangely enough my patriotism has only grown during this time.

I do not believe that I would be able to feel the way I do if it was not for the journey I have been on with my husband. I attribute my patriotism to the experience of seeing first hand the sacrifices and difficulties experienced while sharing my life with a Canadian National Team athlete.

With his clubs we have lived the glamourous life along with Europe’s elite soccer players, but in my eyes it is the dedication he has shown when he plays for Canada that has made his career even more admirable. There is a sense of pride and a pure love of the game that takes over when my husband plays for his country.

He showed me how representing your country is a privilege and also a duty.

Many people view the Canadian National Soccer team as a minnow in the world of international Soccer; however, I have always seen a very different story. I have seen Canadian soccer players forge careers in Europe and receive international recognition.

Even though playing for Canada was never financially lucrative, these same players sacrificed to play for their country. Support for the game is amazing in Canada, and if this support could trickle over to our own National Team we would be able to truly identify with the one part of the game that ultimately binds us all together.

My husband has come home from games with knocks, bruises, and stitches, but nothing physical ever seemed to match the heartbreak of playing a home game for Canada in a stadium filled with away fans.

The fans that have always showed affinity for Canada in those moments might have been fewer in numbers; however, each and every display of support for our nation was appreciated beyond words by the players on the field.

My defining Canadian moment comes mainly from the feeling that is in my heart which is devoted to the country that has given my family and I so much. I was born and raised in Canada and I am so thankful for the fantastic experiences I have had thanks to our beautiful nation.

While living abroad, there has always been such joy when we meet fellow Canadians. We are able to talk, to completely understand each other, and to celebrate what makes us Canadian. It is amazing how quickly we realize how much we have in common with one other and it is likely for this reason that we are so drawn to everything Canadian.

Our home is very sports oriented and we make it a priority to follow Canadian athletes as they compete.

We ended the Vancouver Olympics with a horrible case of jet lag after waking up in the middle of the night for 2 straight weeks to watch live coverage of the events from our home abroad.

When a golfer saw my two year old son hit a golf club and then exclaimed, “The next Tiger!” I swiftly corrected him: “No, the next Mike Weir!”. My daughter tells everyone she wants to skate like Tessa Virtue. I own a Canadian Hockey jersey that I throw on when our teams play and have proudly paraded around in it during our Golden Moments.

I have seen my husband shout while watching John Part play darts, not because he enjoys the sport, but because John Part is the only Canadian in the competition. Patriotism is in your heart and once you have it, you cannot hide your enthusiasm for fellow Canadians.

Win or lose, first or last, the passion for Canada never sways in our home. Even though we do not live in Canada, Canada lives in our hearts and always will.

http://moments.macleans.ca/moments/playing-and-cheering-for-canada-abroad/

[madmonte]

As I said on that forum to her, it's almost unfortunate that Paul didn't get to take to the pitch during the 2012 Honduras game, in only just to see that Canadian fans are at least starting to turn direction.

I may be overly optomistic here, as I always tend to be with the CMT, but if we did happen to qualify for the hex, with the way footie culture in Canada is starting to develop and heading in to World Cup fever (simply because by then euro teams will be well into their qualification as well), the footie fans here will start to put 2 and 2 together and research their own team.

In the last couple of World Cups, by the team euro teams qualification started, they had no reason to...Canada was already gone.

So maybe, deep into the information age when research is only a mouse click away, getting to the hex is all it's going to take for a mini explosion of Canada support?

[red card]

I think the same way, madmonte. We're at an inflection point. Recent stat that has me thinking this way is that the Italy/England match on Sunday was the most watched Euro match in Cdn tv history and even more significant, the most watched tv program in Canada last week.

For CMNT to catch the wave and see a mini explosion, making the HEX is the next step.

[madmonte]

In a way, it's very cyclical isn't it? To get better players, you have to get youth interested in soccer. To get youth interested in soccer, having a strong national team definitely helps. To have a strong national team, you need solid players. Etc...

Making the World Cup would be one of the ways to feed growth for future years too, hopefully, although I'll put more stock into successful MLS teams feeding that future horizon with their promising youth development systems that they are integrating.

[Free kick]

In a way, it's very cyclical isn't it? To get better players, you have to get youth interested in soccer. To get youth interested in soccer, having a strong national team definitely helps. To have a strong national team, you need solid players. Etc...

Yes. This pretty much sums up the vicious circle. That why the 6-8 defections or non committals have hurt so much.

[An Old Fullback]

In today's globe,

USUAL SUSPECTS

Is the beautiful game finally ready to conquer North America?

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN

The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jun. 27 2012, 10:04 AM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Jun. 27 2012, 10:04 AM EDT

For many years, soccer zealots have predicted their sport would finally conquer North America. They might finally be right. TSN’s rating for the Italy/ England Euro 2012 elimination game on Sunday was 2.058-million viewers. In case you’ve forgotten, TSN averaged 774,000 per game for its coverage of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. There were extenuating circumstances, of course. The NHL games were in the West, there was overlap from earlier games going to overtime (on CBC) and there were no Canadian teams involved.

Still. When soccer games outdraw the NHL playoffs on a Canadian sports specialty channel it is worth noting. In case you think the England/ Italy game was one-off, consider that the quarterfinal phase of the Euro on TSN averaged 1.27-million a game. Spain vs. France drew 1.13-million viewers on Saturday. (These are all record numbers.)

Ratings for North American soccer haven’t seen anything like this increase. One reason why European soccer is becoming so popular was advanced this weekend by NHL COO John Collins. “There was a lot of hope for American soccer,” he told Usual Suspects. “It’s the No. 1 sport in world, why doesn’t it take effect in North America? But now you’re seeing major sponsors and FOX and ESPN getting into European soccer or the World Cup instead. They’re starting to get interesting (ratings) numbers. Big numbers.

“They’re starting to understand the event nature of soccer. They’re doing a better job of getting the casual sports fan to pay attention to the Euro or the World Cup, even if you’re not a hardcore Manchester United fan. That’s what we’ve been talking about in the NHL. Creating event programming.”

The NHL’s playoff problem is that, unlike the Euro or World Cup, its playoffs can’t be shoehorned into three or four weeks, which seems the optimal time frame for sustaining peak interest in an event.

[madmonte]

^Nice to see numbers confirming what we've been saying on this forum. As though watching the majority of the fans for the Honduras game in Toronto ACTUALLY BEING CANADA FANS wasn't telling enough!

The World Stage of soccer, I think, is what's going to bring the interest to Canada soccer more than the MLS. They will go from watching Euros/World Cup to watching Canada team, THEN become fans of the players on that team, THEN become MLS fans because that's where they can watch many of those players.

Then again, as I said, cyclical. If Canada doesn't make that hex/World Cup, people will forget we have a team.

[ditty]

I agree that making the hex would bring unprecedented attention to the CMNT and that would be telling it itself because when we were making the hex in the 90s, it barely registered on the sports radar in Canada. That was one reason I was so disappointed we didn't beat Honduras a few weeks ago as I think even that would have upped the spotlight for the September games. We need to be/should be in what I call the 2nd tier of CONCACAF after Mexico and the US (Honduras, Costa Rica, Jamaica, now Panama, earlier T&T).

[beachesl]

The Globe and Mail, which is supposed to be Canada´s "National Newspaper" is a perfect example of the problem.

They have not had an article on our national teams for a month, and the soccer page is entirely fixated on what is happening in Europe, with a few lines thrown off about the MLS. Now, you can argue that is what the majority of football fans in Canada want to read, but for a paper that evangelizes on things national in areas like politics, the economy and the arts, that would be a bad excuse....in fact no excuse at all.

They have an obligation to talk about our National teams, whether people want to read the words or not. Otherwise, lose the tag.

[1996]

Yes the TV ratings for the Euro have been amazing here in Canada and in the USA also. If Canada was to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil the support for Canada will be like nothing you have ever seen for soccer in Canada. I'm also starting to think that the powers that be in the media are starting to figure out that they need to start hiring writers, TV sports people and radio personel that know about soccer. The people in all types of media that are not soccer savy are starting to stick out like sore thumbs and if you have a job in the sports media you better start brushing up on your soccer knowledge or risk being left behind.