I saw them many times over the years since 1993 when they played with Midnight Oil (one of my favourite bands at that time) Since '93, I saw them at just about every venue in this city (The Molson Ampitheatre, The Air Canada Centre, Maple Leaf Gardens, Fort York.) If you were 18 or over in 1989 and liked Rock music (and listened to FM radio here), you likely loved The Tragically Hip. They have literally been the soundtrack to our lives in this city (and country for that matter) if you're a certain age. Our US friends on this forum likely have no idea just how big this band was here since 1989. have been calling in to the CBC and AM640 to talk about what Gord and The Tragically Hip meant to them. That's my game.Even though we all knew here in Toronto that one day this would come, we're all still really shaken here by this sad news.Įvery radio station today that matters here has been playing The Hip's music and lots of fans and musicians, critics, etc. Or, as he explained afterward: "I was finishing my check. The point is, what happened on Tuesday - Downie absorbed a hit along the boards during an exhibition game against the Ottawa Senators, immediately lost his cool, went looking for someone to punish, and wound up leaving his feet and levelling Dean McAmmond with a shot to the head that left him unconscious on the ice, concussed for the second time in a few months, his career perhaps in jeopardy - came as a surprise to absolutely no one who has followed Downie's hockey life. In the extreme, there are plenty of examples of the exploitation of extremely damaged, socially maladjusted young men - as in the Mike Tyson story. But the extreme violence of football makes good use of them as well (one big difference: the penalty for "losing it" during a football game, the way it hurts a team's chances, tends to keep all of that aggression within an approved framework).Īnd though the guys who actually fight for a living, boxers and martial artists, can be cool and rational inside the ring and out, they still need to be willing to cross a line that most of us won't. It's not only hockey - though because hockey continues to allow players to enforce their own extra-legal "code," because it tolerates fighting and intimidation tactics and because it doesn't explicitly prohibit shots to the head, it has a particular need for those willing to do what would get you arrested in any other forum. The uncomfortable truth, though, is that what might make you troubled in other circumstances and what might make you dangerous on the street or in a barroom, can make you all the more valuable in sports. There were mitigating, human-interest circumstances, the fact that he persevered despite a hearing impairment, and especially the trauma of his childhood, when he saw his father die in a car accident.īut watching Downie play, watching him occasionally snap, you couldn't help but wonder what was going on in his head. Sure he tends to cross boundaries - bullying a teammate and fighting with him in practice while a member of the Windsor Spitfires losing it on the ice several times and being suspended. To stick at that level, he'd have to show them something else. The hockey skills that were enough to make him a scorer in junior hockey probably wouldn't carry over to the NHL. In camp with the Flyers this fall, Downie is life and death to make the team.
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