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February 14, 2010 "Americans care more about sports and know more about sports than they do about issues that actually matter." That’s what Mark Dice, the founder of a group call The Resistance, claimed in the week running up to the Super Bowl. The Resistance encouraged all Americans to eschew watching the Super Bowl, and instead read a book on American history. Now, to be clear, as a student of politics, I will never discourage someone from reading about American history. But, it’s the Super Bowl! It matters! After all, as Daniel Henninger opined in a recent Wall Street Journal article, happiness for many is being the fan of a successful sports team. What people like Mr. Dice see is overpaid, complaining athletes, with flawed personalities. And when you only see that, it would be hard not to sympathize with his feelings that sports “don’t matter.” But what Mr. Dice overlooks is the power of sports, and its ability to unite people who otherwise would never have any contact. I’m talking not about the random guy from the other side of the state next to you at a Tigers game at Comerica Park, who also is a Tigers fan. I’m talking about Brazilians. The Detroit Red Wings have often been criticized as the New York Yankees of the NHL (it’s never a good thing to be compared to the Yankees in my opinion). But who would have thought that the Wings would attract a following in… Brazil? Well perhaps a following is an overstatement, but Guilherme, or Herm as he is referred to in the Red Wings blogosphere, is from Brazil and runs a blog called Red Wings Brasil (good luck reading it, it’s in Portuguese). He contributes to many other Red Wings blogs with regularity. He has never met another hockey fan in person, let alone a Red Wings fan. So that got the other Wings bloggers thinking… what if they were able to get Herm to come to Detroit to see his first hockey game ever? And thus, Herm2Hockeytown was born, and the uniting power of sports was unleashed. The bloggers hoped to raise enough money to bring Herm to a game (March 26th, vs. Minnesota). They knew they had thousands of people reading their blogs but there’s a big difference between reading a blog for free, and donating money to a cause. Plus, the only thing that links them to Herm is a passion for sports, and we’re told sports “don’t matter.” 24 hours after opening for donations, Herm2Hockeytown had raised $1,000. They’ve raised approximately $1,300 since. Having exceeded the amount needed to bring Herm to Detroit, they’ve begun donating the rest to Children’s Hospital of Michigan. I wonder if Herm, or for that matter, Children’s Hospital, think sports don’t matter. Maybe it’s healthy to focus on things that don’t matter every once in a while. Unfortunately, you’re not off the hook for that US history stuff. It’s a good idea to brush up on that as well. (c) 2010 Novi
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