Yachting, polo, squash and fencing are what I call upper class sports. You need a lot of money, or go to prep school with it, in order to play or want to even watch.
But two sports that used to be proudly middle class are in danger of being played and watched mainly by rich people. It’s worse that hockey and skiing are the very sports Canadians love and excel at – and are at the heart of being Canadian.
But the news last week that the cost for a family of four to go to a Toronto Maple Leafs game will be $1,000 this season sparked protests from thousands of fans who resent the20%+ jump in season ticket prices in a city that’s already the most expensive in the world to watch pro hockey. The Leafs are a unique subset of what economists call a Giffen Good, a product or service whose demand increases as its price rises. Because the Leaf’s home ice attendance averages 99.8%, with occasional rises to 105%, and has for decades now, they are not just immune to the laws of supply and demand, but to the idea that a better product will draw a bigger audience.
And this is just for the tickets, and not the best tickets at all, and forgetting the dinner you’ll buy, plus the merch of course. (An official Maple Leaf toque costs $42.)
The rising cost to see pro hockey parallels the rising cost to play it at even the most kiddywink level. A full set of mid-range gear for a player age 8 to 14 – including skates, helmet, shoulder pads, elbow pads, gloves, pants, shin guards and at least one stick – will set you back between $600 and $1,000, plus the $575 to $735 to join a league. So, $1,200 to $1,800 for a single season in a regular house league. Plus travel and team uniform. Competitive leagues cost much more to play in.
No wonder soccer and basketball are booming at the youth level. And no surprise that registration for the Greater Toronto Hockey League is down 37% these past five years.
As for skiing, its costs are rising even faster. An adult weekend ski pass at Blue Mountain in Collingwood costs $178 compared to $59 for a weekend pass ten years ago. But the eye-melting costs come not when you ski on the weekend a couple of hours from home, but when you go to an iconic resort like Whistler for a week of skiing.
At Whistler you’ll pay $8,800 to $10,000 per person this winter all-in for a week of skiing, including air, meals and accommodation, compared to $5,100 ten years ago. So, double. Which means that family of four who paid $1,000 to go to a Leafs game will pay $35,200 to $40,000 for a week of skiing at Whistler. No wonder some pundits, including me, have claimed that skiing for a week in Switzerland is comparable in cost.
The US is even more eye-watering. At some mid-level Rocky Mountain resorts, it costs $7,500 USD for a weekend ($10,372 CAD.) So that same family of four skiing in Vail or Aspen for a weekend will pay more than if they stay at home and buy a new Honda CRV on the weekend instead.
Ten and certainly twenty years from now, when Canada’s Prime Minister says “Elbows Up!” as a war cry for aggressive Canadianism, I weep that vast swaths of our 50 million citizens will look up from their screens and say: “What does that mean?”
Meanwhile…
1. The case for crazy philanthropy. Billions of private dollars are flowing into scientific research, just in time to rescue science itself, which is under huge threat from Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. The vast majority of it goes into established “applied research.” Only a thimbleful goes into curiosity-driven or basic research. But if I had a billion dollars, I’d use it to fund outside-the-box ideas that could lead to the creation of entirely new fields. Here’s why.
One of the world’s great bastions and celebrants of basic science is based in Toronto. Every October, The Gairdner Awards are given to the top research scientists worldwide. One in four Gairdner awardees goes on to win the Nobel Prize. In fact, the Gairdners host an entire week of free scientific talks and lectures in October.
And just to double-down, here’s the case for useless knowledge.
2. How to stay alive. Ian Leslie on growing old(er). Plus, what being 96 sounds like. And Hollywood hands a second life to Meryl Streep playing Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which lands next May. And why can honey badgers take on lions? They’re smart.Even smarter than raccoons.
3. Do you know what a Chekist is? It’s the key to analysing Vladimir Putin. Plus, inside America’s first whites-only gated community. Plus, the latest right-wing thing:gerrymander jewelry. And use a little care, please, in describing ‘undocumented immigrants’. And here’s an odd occupation, filming felons so they get clemency. Finally, Glenn Close mourns the loss of her America.
4. It’s time to learn new things. Like how to fly flat when you fly commercial. Speaking of which, if you fly economy in the US, you’re subsidizing someone who’s flying private. (Not true in Canada.) Plus, how to pee in space without dribbling. And how to sniff out bogus science. And toss cabers (usually retired telegraph poles) in northern Scotland (by Alexander McCall Smith, no less.)
And do live interpretation. And be a good guest on a yacht.
5. We’re all in this together, right? Maybe this lifeguard isn’t. Plus bilingualism at its best shot decades ago. Plus how to offend shoplifters. And why high school debating no longer allows debating.
6. Why are bears always boys? Because children’s books make them so. And why are some people turning to yeast as low-maintenance companions? And why are some older single men “elusive, ungetable, a real catch.” And why do attractive blondes still sell things? And what happens when a French woman wins the women’s Tour de France? And why get married at all? And finally, a cautionary tale about roses.
7. A history of the world…every year since 200,000 BCE. Plus the most expensive weddings in history. And how each major sports league makes money (big surprise to me that pro baseball and basketball are virtually the same size.) Finally, the Oscar’s Best Picture Award for the past 25 years.
8. Behind the scenes with Céline in Paris. Remember Céline Dion last summer opening the Olympics from the Eiffel Tower? Well, she’s back. Not many of those extremely young conductors are being invited back on the podium. Plus flamenco as it should be danced by Siudy Garrido. Plus, the all-male ballerinas of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo are coming to Toronto in October for their 50th anniversary shows. Ticketshere.
9. A Nobel Laureate on Enshittification. As Cory Doctorow, who coined the word, defines it: “Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” Paul Krugman takes it to another level.
Next, “AI psychosis” refers to people who experience delusions, paranoia, or extreme emotional distress after lengthy chatbot interactions. Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man from Toronto became convinced that he was a real-life superhero.
Next, get the Trump Action Tracker to keep track not just of his latest outrages, but all of them.
10. For the last time…no, red wine isn’t good for your heart. Plus the best conversation of all if you’re bipolar. And a very elite club whose ‘initiation is a real bitch.’
11. What I’m liking. In the feast of great music Koerner Hall is offering this Fall is…a three-day celebration of Oscar Peterson’s 100th birthday with concerts, symposia, and master classes, featuring Christian McBride, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and Benny Green, as well as Makoto Ozone, Amanda Tosoff, Jon Kimura Parker, Thompson Egbo-Egbo, and Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Plus…once-in-a-generation soprano Renée Fleming makes her Koerner Hall debut on November 1 in a gala concert featuring her new project, Voices of Nature: The Anthropocene Recital where she’ll explore the deep and evolving relationship between music and nature. The day before, Fleming will front a day-long symposium entitled Music and the Mind with musicians, neuroscientists, policy makers, and athletes discussing the benefits of music on early childhood brains.