Sports in Canadian culture

[artvandelay]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Toronto is Canada's unrivalled metropolis, the situation is not comparable to Brazil where one is the well known cultural capital while the other is a lesser known and slightly larger business capital.

London is the UK's unrivaled metropolis. Paris is France's unrivaled metropolis.

Canada is more akin to Germany, with several large regional centres.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Toronto is Canada's unrivalled metropolis, the situation is not comparable to Brazil where one is the well known cultural capital while the other is a lesser known and slightly larger business capital.

Well to be fair, its more than slightly larger... 12 mill vs 6.5 (and metro 21 mill vs 12).

The entire golden horseshoe could basically fit inside the difference in metro populations.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

I would be very interested if the question was posed internationally, what Canadian city would you like to visit. Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver? Personally I don't think T.O has the cachet the other two do. To me, Toronto is the Chicago to Montreal's Paris and Vancouver's LA. I originally had compared Montreal with New York but neither Toronto, Montreal or any other city in the world is comparable to New York (maybe London)

"Toronto is unrivalled", at least when it comes to global prestige and renown, is more 21st century Toronto boosterism than anything else. (Though Toronto is unrivalled economically I totally agree.)

If you talk to people around the world most people probably think Toronto and Montreal are closer in size than they actually are. Kind of like Sydney-Melbourne, which are fairly close in size. Melbourne may eventually overtake Sydney, but Montreal won't overtake Toronto, that's for sure.

We're actually a lot closer to the situation with Brazil's two largest cities than some people would like to recognize.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by elly63

I would be very interested if the question was posed internationally, what Canadian city would you like to visit. Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver? Personally I don't think T.O has the cachet the other two do. To me, Toronto is the Chicago to Montreal's Paris and Vancouver's LA. I originally had compared Montreal with New York but neither Toronto, Montreal or any other city in the world is comparable to New York (maybe London)

Regardless of where people want to visit, they sure do know Toronto out there. When I travel outside of North America and someone asks me where I'm from, I find it surprising when they don't follow up with "ohhh, Canadian. You are from Toronto?"

In Asia, Vancouver comes up more often and from time to time someone will mention Montreal. But easily 4 times out of 5 it's Toronto.

(And my response is always, "I'm from Winnipeg, you idiot")

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

Regardless of where people want to visit, they sure do know Toronto out there. When I travel outside of North America and someone asks me where I'm from, I find it surprising when they don't follow up with "ohhh, Canadian. You are from Toronto?"

In Asia, Vancouver comes up more often and from time to time someone will mention Montreal. But easily 4 times out of 5 it's Toronto.

(And my response is always, "I'm from Winnipeg, you idiot")

I find that Canadian cities in general don't have high global visibility, and usually which ones spring to people's minds is usually related to where people from a foreign country had a tendency to immigrate to. And other factors: Finns might know Winnipeg more than Poles because of Teemu Selanne...

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I find that Canadian cities in general don't have high global visibility, and usually which ones spring to people's minds is usually related to where people from a foreign country had a tendency to immigrate to. And other factors: Finns might know Winnipeg more than Poles because of Teemu Selanne...

Haha, Finland might be the only country where Winnipeg registers as one of the most prominent Canadian cities... they know Teemu is still considered a god among men here

Actually, the hockey connection means that Winnipeg is probably better known in the Scandi countries than pretty well anywhere else in the world outside of North America. Some of their stars from the past played here over the years, like Anders Hedberg, Lars-Erik Sjoberg, Ulf Nilsson, Thomas Steen, etc. I've never been there myself but I know a couple people who have, and they mentioned that Winnipeg was reasonably well known there in that they generally know Winnipeg is a Canadian city.

[mistercorporate]

Realistically, aside from a handful of francophone countries, Toronto is pretty much the only city the vast majority of people overseas would have even heard of along with random attractions like Niagara Falls.

Rio has far more cache than Sao Paulo and is the cultural capital of Brazil. Toronto, is both a cultural and business capital of this country by all relevant metrics. The Golden Horseshoe also has double the population of Greater Montreal and the gap is widening, case closed. No offense intended but it is what it is.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Thomas Steen!!!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Realistically, aside from a handful of francophone countries, Toronto is pretty much the only country the vast majority of people overseas would have even heard of along with random attractions like Niagara Falls.

Rio has far more cache than Sao Paulo and is the cultural capital of Brazil. Toronto, is both a cultural and business capital of this country by all relevant metrics. The Golden Horseshoe also has double the population of Greater Montreal and the gap is widening, case closed. No offense intended but it is what it is.

Maybe it's the booze (just got back from a retirement party), but Toronto as a cultural capital in the same breath as Rio - or even Montreal TBQH - just makes me laugh.

Fire away! I've got plenty of antifreeze in me to dull the pain...

[esquire]

^I will happily kick Toronto in the nuts where it is deserved, but I also have to give it credit where it is due... Toronto is a legitimate cultural capital. It is the centre of the country's television industry, the press, the theatre scene, music, film, literature, magazines, you name it.

Montreal obviously occupies a very important role at the centre of French Canada's cultural world, but ultimately it is at best a 1A to Toronto's undisputed 1. No other Canadian city is even in the conversation.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Maybe it's the booze (just got back from a retirement party), but Toronto as a cultural capital in the same breath as Rio - or even Montreal TBQH - just makes me laugh.

Fire away! I've got plenty of antifreeze in me to dull the pain...

It's the booze, or the pink unicorns.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^I will happily kick Toronto in the nuts where it is deserved, but I also have to give it credit where it is due... Toronto is a legitimate cultural capital. It is the centre of the country's television industry, the press, the theatre scene, music, film, literature, magazines, you name it.

Montreal obviously occupies a very important role at the centre of French Canada's cultural world, but ultimately it is at best a 1A to Toronto's undisputed 1. No other Canadian city is even in the conversation.

It's just odd to have people pontificate about Toronto reigning uncontested culturally over the entire country (and including us in it) when in actual fact it has minimal influence on about one quarter of Canada.

It's like: "Sure you guys have this cute French thingy going on in Montreal/Quebec that complements the massive amount of Canadian cultural stuff that the national cultural and entertainment beacon in Toronto produces for you", when in actual fact it's more like Montreal's scene *parallels* that of Toronto.

If anything Montreal is actually much stronger on its turf (French Canada) than Toronto is on its turf (English Canada).

If anything, Canada in terms of cultural capitals has two 1As, not a 1 and a 1A.

[esquire]

^ The difference is that Montreal is the cultural hub for a much smaller part of Canada than Toronto, both geographically and in terms of population.

[Acajack]

My kids are living in Canada and off the top of my head, I can't think of any books, movies, TV shows or programs (fiction or non-fiction), magazines, music, or artists of any kind etc. that they pay attention to that come out of Toronto or, at least, in the case of music in particular... are related to the fact that they are *Canadian* and that they wouldn't have otherwise known via the global pop music scene.

A handful of pop music artists (that are popular around the world anyway) and that's it.

So you guys are telling me that that's their country's uncontested cultural capital? Really?

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by esquire

^I will happily kick Toronto in the nuts where it is deserved, but I also have to give it credit where it is due... Toronto is a legitimate cultural capital. It is the centre of the country's television industry, the press, the theatre scene, music, film, literature, magazines, you name it.

Montreal obviously occupies a very important role at the centre of French Canada's cultural world, but ultimately it is at best a 1A to Toronto's undisputed 1. No other Canadian city is even in the conversation.

Canada doesn't really have a television, film, or magazine industry of its own and is overall pretty weak on the cultural content production. Toronto-based media generally rebroadcasts American content, reprints/straight sells American magazines, and acts as a filming location for American films (Vancouver might be the number 1 in this regard or has Toronto passed them? I remember talk about that happening or that it was getting close or something).

Montreal on the other hand, creates a lot of content for Quebec. If you look at "international" versions of shows, often Canada's version is a French-language production. English Canada just gets the simsub American show.

Canadian actors, playwrights, singers, and musicians don't really go to Toronto to make it big either... They head to US cultural capitals to do this (mostly LA and New York depending on the industry). Most end up becoming dual citizens in the end too.

(Yes, that's a bit of my jaded "wish our media would actually put some effort into supporting Canadian culture" attitude I've now come to have). They hide behind foreign competition protection laws, but aren't really "Champions for Canada" in return. They basically do the bare minimum that they are forced to do.

This is not so much a dig at Toronto, but more a dig at what Canadian (english-language) media/culture has become, which is, on the whole, centred in Toronto.

I would almost sadly tend to agree with Acajack's two 1As comment than the 1 and 1A.

To bring it back to sports... We have 1 professional domestic league and it struggles with disinterest because it isn't as rich or big as the American counterparts. All other teams in Canada are part of American leagues, the existence of which in the past at least partially prevented wholly Canadian leagues from developing (and now basically guarantees it will either be a struggle or fail outright).

So here again (for the MLB and NBA), Toronto acts as a conduit for American culture. The NHL is a little bit of both. We should be able to have a completely national league given how big hockey is... But the allure of American money and the history of how the league came to be have either slowed or prevented the development of a wholly Canadian league or further expansion within Canada.

Even with the CFL, one of the solutions to help it grow is almost always "try expansion into the states again".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ The difference is that Montreal is the cultural hub for a much smaller part of Canada than Toronto, both geographically and in terms of population.

Sure, but that doesn't give Toronto a major cultural impact in the part of Canada dominated by Montreal.

[esquire]

I didn't say that Toronto was great at producing cultural content that dominates in Canada the way that I'm sure Tokyo produces cultural content that dominates in Japan, but for better or for worse, nobody in Canada does it better than Toronto.

I mean, if you disagree that Toronto is the cultural capital of Canada, then what are the alternatives? Montreal has its zone of influence that it dominates more than Toronto does in English Canada, but at the end of the day you're talking about no more than 1/5 of the country that falls into Montreal's cultural orbit. Montreal's cultural influence in English Canada is waning and has long since been surpassed by western cities like Calgary and Edmonton.

So who does that leave you with? Vancouver? Ottawa? Come on.

[Oilkountry]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You meant M, not K, right?

Yep oops

[HomeInMyShoes]

Based on the Canadian Entertainment and Media thread isn't it obvious that St. John's is the cultural capital of Canada.

[Acajack]

This is perfectly accurate if your country is called English Canada.

Originally Posted by esquire

I didn't say that Toronto was great at producing cultural content that dominates in Canada the way that I'm sure Tokyo produces cultural content that dominates in Japan, but for better or for worse, nobody in Canada does it better than Toronto.

I mean, if you disagree that Toronto is the cultural capital of Canada, then what are the alternatives? Montreal has its zone of influence that it dominates more than Toronto does in English Canada, but at the end of the day you're talking about no more than 1/5 of the country that falls into Montreal's cultural orbit. Montreal's cultural influence in English Canada is waning and has long since been surpassed by western cities like Calgary and Edmonton.

So who does that leave you with? Vancouver? Ottawa? Come on.