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New Year, New Changes
Happy New Year!
The Sport Heritage Review blog has been in operation since mid-2013. The main purposes of the blog were three-fold: 1. to disseminate sport heritage research and views about sport heritage, 2. to discuss the state of sport heritage, both academic and popular, 3. to act as a kind-of reference point, particularly for me, to express ideas about sport heritage which may be used in research at a later date (a kind of research thought diary, as it were). This blog receives very modest readership, although I believe in a few instances it has helped to stimulate some new directions and thoughts about sport heritage and sport heritage research, and not just in my own research. That said, I had hoped it would be something a little more akin to the excellent Sport in American History blog, which has multiple contributors providing consistent and high-quality contributions. I’m not sure this is feasible for this blog – heritage remains a relatively misunderstood and opaque term, and few folks I have approached have volunteered their time and talents – and would take a level of time and commitment that simply isn’t possible at this stage. Furthermore, 700-1200 word blogs every week or two about a sport heritage topic is difficult to continue given my other research, teaching, and service commitments.
That said, I think there are some directions this blog could go, and I plan to try a specific direction out over the next few months or so. Currently, I am sole-authoring a book called Heritage and Sport for Channel View publications – which, to the best of my knowledge, will be the first authored (rather than edited) book about sport heritage. The manuscript is scheduled for submission in October 2018, so I am currently deep into the research, outlining, and drafting stages of the book. This will be my first authored book, and I am finding the process both deeply intimidating as well as wonderfully invigorating. I am also currently lead on a grant project that is using sport heritage in a health-based program, specifically using college football-based sport heritage and sport nostalgia in the development of care programs for dementia patients. I am very excited (though, again, deeply intimidated) by this project, and I hope that we can see how sport heritage can be used in a very different setting. Finally, I have a new doctoral student who is very interested in looking at sport heritage in a Korean context, which could yield some very interesting perspectives about this topic. So, needless to say, there are a few things going on over the next year or two!
As such, I thought I might use this blog to document the process of these three projects in particular, and perhaps others projects as they develop. I envision that this would largely entail short, frequent notes (perhaps 200 words or so, perhaps accompanied by a photo or two) about a particular book or article I am reading in researching my book or a sport heritage place I am visiting as part of the research process, or some of the observations I made while helping to develop the sport heritage/dementia care program, or a summary of a discussion between my grad student and I about sport heritage. I imagine I will likely also use this blog to post questions or roadblocks encountered during these projects, or work through methods issues we might have, or celebrate some of our successes. I imagine I will, from time to time, have longer, more in-depth pieces as well, as well as promoting some of my own research when it is published, but I think documenting the nuts and bolts of sport heritage research would be both helpful for me and, potentially, of greater interest than what I have been writing on this forum over the past few years.
I feel proud about much of what has been written on this blog to-date, and I think it has – at times – been useful. But, I am excited about this new direction for this forum, and I hope you’ll join me.
Sport Heritage Institutions and Organizations
I am currently writing a book about heritage and sport, and as part of my research to find new perspectives about this topic I came across Mike Cronin and Roisin Higgins excellent Places We Play: Ireland’s Sporting Heritage. While the authors cover many topics one would expect from a sport heritage-based book – including some of the sites, stadiums, and places associated with Irish sport – they also included a chapter about something I hadn’t considered before: institutions as a form of sport heritage. Specific to their topic, they considered in particular non-sport institutions such as the Catholic Church, the YMCA, and schools and universities as “a key set of institutions in Irish life which believed that sport and physical exercise would benefit their communities” (p. 59).
Of course, one can not only consider the non-sport institutions that helped to historically facilitate sport (particularly at the community and grassroots level), often as something – again to quote Cronin and Higgins – that was “morally and physically beneficial” to people. Rather, in addition, could we also consider other institutions that help to create, disseminate, and facilitate sport heritage – such as media, or the military? Or that which protects sport heritage sites, like the law and government? Sport heritage is, after all, used to generate nationalism in many different ways.
And, again, if we take a subset of institutions and think, specifically, about sport heritage organizations – such as interest groups, professional organizations, and the like – certainly these could be part of the sport heritage as well. And, sports and media organizations also have their own heritage – not just in terms of corporate culture and the like, but also in terms of celebrating longevity (anniversaries of leagues, the marking of events such as the SuperBowl, etc.) These are not only marketing tropes, but also give a sense of permanency and trust.
Of course, the role of institutions and organizations in sport has been touched-on in sport history. However, that institutions and organizations are both connected to sport heritage, and how they use sport heritage to meet their current aims and considerations, is something to explore.
Sport Heritage Re-Enactments: A Look at Vintage Base Ball
One element of heritage, particularly public manifestations of heritage, is that heritage is much more fun to do and to watch rather than to read-about. Most museums and historic sites will provide opportunities for visitors to touch, feel, and try particular activities from the past. Many will also incorporate forms of live interpretation and re-enactments, in order for visitors to see the past “come to life.” Certainly, these opportunities provide a much more diverse learning opportunity for visitors and provide a sensual, and perhaps empathetic, link between past and present. However, these kinds of activities are also enjoyable and make for an entertaining day out. Perhaps this is why forms of heritage events, such as the ubiquitous Renaissance Fair and Battle Re-enactments, are so popular. Of course, the forms and types of authenticity in these kinds of representations can vary. In my earlier life working at a pioneer village, we worked with several re-enactment groups, and while I found there was an intense fidelity to the accuracy of their outfits, there was little understanding – or care – of the broader social, cultural, and political issues of that material culture…or most anything else, really. At times, it was a cosplay, albeit with real or imagined educational overtones. At other times, I have seen re-enactment done very well, where it is entertaining, accurate, and informative.
Sport heritage has been relatively slow to the re-enactment game, although this has been changing. Certainly, sports museums employ interactive exhibits for a variety of reasons, from entertaining visitors to recruiting the next generation of athletes, though given the ludic nature of sport, it is surprising we have not seen more sites use more interpretation and re-enactments. Similarly, sport re-enactments and historical demonstrations may be akin to experimental archaeology, where historical sports are attempted to see how they work in time and space. However, there appears to be a rise in forms of sport heritage re-enactment and demonstration, particularly in the United States using early manifestations of baseball.
Vintage Base Ball, as it is called, uses rules from the mid-to-late 19th century, and includes players dressing up in period costume and – in some cases – using antiquated language. The sport is a bit of a hybrid between contemporary baseball and cricket, most noticeably in that the pitcher is called the bowler and fielders don’t use gloves. As The Guardian describes it in an article from August:
Certainly, there are broader ideas – and ideals – of simplicity and something of the rural pastoral, which is indicative of many forms of heritage. The Guardian notes that there has been a significant rise in the number of teams in recent years, and while this could be simply the latest heritage/leisure trend, perhaps there is a larger issue going on – what Philip Moore calls “practical nostalgia” – whereby the nostalgic past becomes a roadmap for how to cure the ills of the present and future. Perhaps Vintage Base Ball is the latest antidote for coping with contemporary society.
Earlier in October, I had the chance to actually play Vintage Base Ball as part of the Georgia Peaches – representing the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Georgia – as they took on the Shoeless Joes – representing the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville, South Carolina. The event is held each autumn, and the host museum flips back and forth (this year’s event was held in Royston). While many heritage-based events have goals related to awareness, or an attendance increase, or to raise funds, this annual event appears to exist simply to exist – that it is a way to celebrate, and perhaps redeem and rehabilitate, two of baseball’s infamous antiheroes: Joe Jackson, kicked out of baseball and banned from Hall of Fame induction, for allegedly being part of a group that fixed the 1919 World Series, and Ty Cobb, one of the game’s greatest players, but who might be most well-known for having an extremely short, violent, and possibly racist temper. Shoeless Joe has become a bit more of a folk hero in recent years, perhaps because of his link to the work of the late W.P. Kinsella and the film Field of Dreams, while Cobb – though still largely viewed in a negative light – has inspired recent scholarship that challenges much of the popular negative depiction of him.
There is also an element of kinaesthetic learning to Vintage Base Ball. Like experimental archaeology, Vintage Base Ball could be considered a form of experimental sport heritage – trying a game from the past, in the present, and seeing how it works. I noticed that the game when relatively quickly – we played two games, in fact, and neither took more than 90 minutes or so. In part, it seemed that this had much to do with the rules, in particular that an out could be achieved from catching the ball after one hop (rather than in the air, as is the only way contemporary baseball). Similarly, you could see the echoes of cricket in the game, particularly in terms of fielding and style of play. Certainly, in the 1860s there was a transition from cricket to baseball, though beyond terminology and the lack of gloves, there is also an apparent shared yearning for a more civil form of recreation and leisure. Finally, although there was some fidelity to authentic representation (one player for the Georgia Peaches came all the way from St. Louis, and wore a vintage Detroit Tigers uniform for the game), it was more about celebrating the achievements of Cobb and Jackson, as well as creating a tradition in their name.
Seasons and Sport Heritage
Last year on this blog I wrote about sensing sport heritage, that is to say that there is a particular form of sensuality associated with sport heritage which is more than just seeing or touching a sporting place or artefact. Many heritages, as we know, are more personal in nature and link to individual pasts and memories, particularly from childhood. Things like smell and taste are part of our sporting pasts, and can take us back to particular sporting experiences. One of my students, for example, recently related a story about how drinking hot chocolate immediately reminded her of being at a hockey rink in her home in Vermont. For her, hot chocolate will always be linked to winters at the rink, and she found that it triggered a very specific form of nostalgia for her.
Perhaps less specific than links to specific senses are the associations of sports with the natural calendar; that there is an almost visceral connection between seasons and particular sports. Of course, particular sports must be played at particular times of the year, although with our ability to control and create artificial environments, weather can be eliminated or controlled in sporting environments in many cases. No, this is to say that watching or participating in certain sports simply belong to the wider heritage of a particular season; that certain sports simply belong at particular times of year. Of course, we may simply be conditioned to expect that particular sports belong at certain times of the year – what is commonly called institutional seasonality. American football is associated with the Fall, and though it feels as though it ought to be associated with leaves and cooler temperatures and autumn holidays like Thanksgiving, the institutional structure of it simply puts it at a certain time of year. Football could, of course, just as easily be played in the spring – but, because of its institutional structure, we associate the sport with the broader markers of the season. Other sports, like baseball, have – in a sense – a dual season – as Ken Burns says (and to paraphrase), baseball gives us the promise of spring and the harsh realities of fall. And, yet, there is something wholly appropriate about the traditions associated with Opening Day in baseball – normally one of the most anticipated days in the American sporting calendar – in large part because of the promise of spring renewal. Similarly, I have friends and colleagues who adore October baseball, not only because it is the playoffs but because the feel of the games are part of the tradition; that summer has clearly past, and winter is on the horizon, but the playoffs occupy that beautiful liminal space in-between. As a colleague said to me earlier this month, “it just smells like October baseball.” Baseball may even have a third season, the offseason where many of the moves and transactions take place, which – associating it with cold, winter nights – is called the “hot stove” which “calls up images of baseball fans gathering around a hot stove during the cold winter months, discussing their favorite baseball teams and players.”
A few years back, I had a paper published about the development of community league hockey rinks in Edmonton. Although the paper was largely a historical look at gender and recreation, the paper was – in part – framed around the winter-based tropes that are part and parcel of the outdoor hockey experience. Of course, cold, winter weather is necessary to have outdoor hockey but, of course, the rink and the season associated with this sporting practice are part of broader identities. I liberally quoted from both academic and popular sources that framed the rink as, in part, “a key signifier of our national claims on winter and northernness, of our identity as a wholesome, hardy people. Rosy- cheeked children play shinny against a prairie sky, a city skyline, a ridge of pines. Cold winds are vanquished by the swoosh and cut of a blade, the thwack of a frozen puck on a stick. A national fairy tale.” In this, the sport cannot be separated from the season; they are both part and parcel of the traditions and heritages of certain times of year.
Of course, like any heritage, the linking of sport and particular times of year are contextual and, perhaps, driven by media discourses. The infamous – and often parodied – introduction of The Masters golf tournament by Jim Nantz has constructed and solidified an impression of spring in the South. Of course, in the global media age, many of these impressions of particular times of year are mobile, and may resonate with people who have never directly experienced these conditions – but feel attached and attracted to them, nevertheless. Growing up in Canada, the outdoor rink was simply part of who we were – though, now, through the proliferation of outdoor hockey events, many fans may now see these kinds of environments as part of their heritage too – even if they are relatively foreign to them.
However, we ought to consider these broader environments – seasons, temperature, and weather – as part of sport heritage. In many cases, they are as important in creating and constructing the sporting past as buildings and artefacts.
Sports Beach Books – 2016 Edition
For the last two years, I have written blog posts recommending some sports-centric books suitable for beach-reading. That is to say, these books need to a) be somehow about sport, and b) need to be substantive – but not weighty (perhaps both in tone and tome, as it were). Though we are a few weeks into summer at this point, there are probably a few weeks left of beach time (at least for us in the northern hemisphere) and a chance to catch up on some summer reading. I will also point out that these are simply some of my recommendations – the excellent Sports Biblio website is a treasure trove for sports lit, and is certainly far more in-depth and complete that my meagre offering here. Finding a theme for this years list, I’d venture to place my recommendations into two categories – deeply bucolic and idyllic, and nostalgic in, perhaps, the most romantic and bittersweet way. Enjoy!
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack – Larwrence Booth (ed.)
Few things signal the beginnings of summer more for me than the publication of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Though the physical almanack is, perhaps, a little unsuitable for beach-reading per se, the “Shorter” Wisden – available for e-readers – includes all of the best written components of the Almanack without the many scorecards from county games and the like (though, personally, I download the shorter version for my Kindle and order the physical copy for my library). Wisden is perhaps most famous for its “Five Cricketers of the Year,” each year offers many original insights about the state of the game (2016’s version includes discussions ranging from the history of cricketing celebrations to exploring why there aren’t more British-Asians in first-class cricket), while the review section includes all of the annual round-ups of cricket miscellany: from cricket books and film to cricket on social media to the market for cricket memorabilia. There is also a wonderful obituary section which includes often moving write-ups of first-class cricketers and administrators great and small, the recaps of England’s international team, the domestic leagues, and cricket around the world. Every summer, I piece through Wisden – reading bits here and there – and it never fails to make me dream of perfect summer days at some county ground.
Sweet Summers – JM Kilburn
“Cricket is of us, as the very breath in our lungs, makes poets of the incoherent and artists of the artisans. Not one of us that takes a bat or bowls a ball or watches a game but gives and receives a precious heritage.” So says JM Kilburn, longtime cricket correspondent for the Yorkshire Post, in this collection of his best cricket writing. Though Wisden is steeped in heritage, it is very much focused on the game as it is now. This collection, on the other hand, reveals a past where cricket – particularly at the county level – was truly important, and poetic, and a goodly heritage. Kilburn’s writing is idyllic and bucolic and wonderful in all of the ways that sentimental writing ought to be, with the added component that it is never saccharine and always done with the greatest affection. I find myself reading and re-reading sections of this book often, particularly when I find that life has gotten in the way of perfect leisure, and it reminds me of what once was, and could be again.
Not by a Long Shot – T.D. Thornton
With apologies to boxing, few sports have seen such a vast decline in popularity – at least in the United States – as horse racing has in the past 80 years. That decline – and, perhaps, the romance that goes along with a sport that is still deeply loved by a few hardcore and dedicated stalwarts – is the focus of Thornton’s book about the (now closed) Suffolk Downs track in Boston. In equal parts autopsy and love letter, Thornton explains the decline of the sport while still demonstrating vast admiration for those places and people that keep it going.
Up, Up, and Away – Jonah Keri
The Montreal Expos seem like a strange topic for such an engrossing book that is both autoethnography (Keri was a die-hard Expos fan) and history, but Keri does a remarkable job of weaving personal narrative, historical narratives, and interview material together to discuss the rise and fall of Canada’s first Major League Baseball team. Though the Expos left Montreal in 2004, there is a growing movement to expand or relocate to the city again. Given what Keri describes in this book, Expos 2.0 will have a long ways to go to live up to the drama, personalities, and fun of their predecessors.
Athletes and the Paradox of Sport Heritage
On Friday evening, I will be going to Turner Field in Atlanta (the former Olympic Stadium which will close at the end of this season) to watch the Atlanta Braves take on the Miami Marlins. Though there are several reasons for going to this game in particular – perhaps, in part, connecting a summer leisure activity to a kind-of American traditionalism and nationalism, not to mention the fact that though I dislike the Braves immensely, I like the Marlins…and I love attending live baseball games in the middle of summer – one of my main considerations is seeing Ichiro Suzuki play one final time before he, likely, retires at the end of the season.
Ichiro was, in many respects, baseball’s first global superstar, having established himself in Japanese baseball before joining the Seattle Mariners in his late 20s. Recently, his combined professional hits total topped that of Pete Rose – and though there is some controversy as to whether his Japanese career “counts,” there is little doubt that Ichiro changed the game of baseball, both through his playing ability and through his global reach. He is certainly a first-ballot Hall of Fame player, and arguably one of the best baseball players of all time.
I first saw Ichiro play live in Seattle in 2006. I took a seat in right field – Ichiro’s then position – and was surrounded by fans from Japan, all there to see him play. In fact, much of the in-stadium signage – as well as many of the on-field advertisements – were in both English and Japanese, suggesting just how much of a magnet Ichiro was for fans overseas. Friday’s game will be my third time seeing Ichiro (the other was a mid-April Braves-Marlins game last season), and though I don’t expect to see the same reaction as I experience in 2006, I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a few fans there who, like me, want to see him play one last time.
In many ways, my desire to see Ichiro play reflects on our understandings of sport heritage, namely that athletes represent a kind-of “living” artefact or heritage object. Sean Gammon, in his 2014 paper “Heroes as Heritage“, argues that athletes represent a type of dual sport heritage, in that they themselves are living heritage objects and that their accomplishments and feats represent a type of intangible heritage. I wrote, in response to Gammon’s paper, that
The heroes and the sporting moments they create then, as Gammon argues, become artefacts, and though we can relive and replay the achievement (and, in a sense, preserve the moment(s) in time, perhaps through both personal memory and vicariously through media) we cannot preserve “the object” in the same way that we might other forms of tangible heritage. The relationship between the achievement and the athlete, in fact, demonstrates a paradox in sport heritage. Athletes age, change, and are no longer what they were – indeed, athletes are some of the few heritage “objects” that are not aided by the patina of age. However, their achievements may become more glorious – or heroic – as time goes on.
Ichiro is certainly not the player he once was, and though he’s had a bit of a renaissance as of late, at 42 years of age he now a fourth outfielder (essentially filling in from time to time from starting players) and is battling well down the line-up (as he often strikes out more than he puts a ball in play these days). But, I am not going to see Ichiro as he is now – I am creating anticipatory heritage for myself (the “tell my grandkids about” moment), and celebrating his past achievements – making them, and he, more glorious and heroic as we are farther removed from them.
Art and Dissonance in Sport Heritage
The idea of dissonance as perhaps the central, innate characteristic of heritage is not new. Indeed, if we accept that all heritage is not neutral, the notion that all heritage could have a counter narrative seems reasonable. In this, we understand – as many in critical heritage studies do – that heritage is often, and perhaps always, about power.
In sport heritage, we have not necessarily considered dissonant heritages that often. While Sean Gammon and I, back in 2005, argued that the sporting past in tourism ought to be called heritage rather than nostalgia – in large part because heritage had the capacity for dissonant narratives – there actually aren’t that many dissonant narratives at sport heritage sites. Of course, there are many reasons for this – as most sport heritage sites like museums and halls of fame are primarily about celebration of achievement and, as such, more challenging views are frequently ignored. Still, there appears to be very few outlets where more challenging approaches to the sporting past – at least in terms of cultural sites like museums – are seen. Similarly, many non-sport cultural entities tend to avoid sporting exhibitions, perhaps viewing sport as too common and popular to represent at, say, a gallery or as part of a broad-based exhibition.
However, there are a few examples I am familiar with where art, dissonance, and sport heritage have met. Perhaps the best example was the Arena: The Art of Hockey exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2008. The exhibition both embraced and challenged many of the links between hockey and Canadian national identity. On the one hand, many of the works embraced – if, somewhat subversively – the role hockey plays in Canadian identity. I recall one work which was little more than a nude male and female holding hockey sticks. On the other hand, there were many works that challenged hockey culture and heritage. One work, in particular (and, forgive, I forget the name – though it appears that there are still exhibition guides available) was a collage of images set on an indigenous reserve that featured scenes of hockey as well as suicide, alcoholism, racism and sexual abuse. Although I suspect the work could be read in many ways, I took it as the fact that hockey – and sport in general – does not necessarily address, and perhaps masks, larger social issues.
Similarly, a 2008 exhibition called “Hard Targets: Masculinity and Sports” looks at the violence and voyeuristic aspects of sport consumption. Like Arena, this exhibition appeared to take sport cultures and heritages into an unfamiliar space, both critiquing and celebrating the physicality of sporting practices.
Although there are certainly many other examples of art, dissonance, and sport heritage than these, and there are many sporting sites and places that do address dissonant heritages (Although I have a chapter coming out in early 2017 which looks at several sites that employ dissonant sport heritage narratives), there appears to be space within art galleries in particular – which, perhaps is not available to traditional sport heritage sites like museums and halls of fame – to both celebrate and challenge sport heritages. Perhaps some of this has to do with visitor expectations: hall of fame patrons may be looking to celebrate and nostalgize, while gallery patrons may expect subversion. However, these not need be polar opposites – and can exist, in many cases, side by side (as was recently featured in a post about Argentina). Certainly, many stadia – such as Marlins Park in Miami – have incorporated public art into stadium design (and not simply for nostalgic purposes). While this is not always necessarily addressing major social issues – as some of the art in the Arena exhibit might – it nevertheless demonstrates that so-called “high” and “low” cultures and heritage are not necessarily incompatible.
Fútbol and Heritage in Argentina
For the past ten days, I have been in Argentina – specifically Buenos Aires and Rosario – leading a course about soccer and globalization in conjunction with the Clemson men’s soccer program. The students had a series of lectures and presentations pre-departure, mostly based off of Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. Foer’s thesis is that “globalization has failed to diminish soccer’s local cultures, local blood feuds, and local corruption, and may have actually increased the power of local entities.” The students have been asked to reflect on this global/local tension of soccer cultures through a series of seminar discussions and journal entries while we are in country. Upon our return to the United States, the students will have to complete a major paper that, in part, addresses Foer’s thesis as viewed through the lens of their own experiences in Argentina, including playing games against local squads (such as the reserve teams of San Lorenzo and Newell’s Old Boys, to name but two), going to local matches (including at River Plate and Argentinos Juniors), and through their own informal interactions with the sporting and non-sporting cultures of Argentina.
As you can imagine, the students have experienced many different aspects of globalization and its local resistance throughout the journey thus far, from playing an impromptu five-on-five street match against locals in the La Boca community to being swept-up in the atmosphere of El Monumental during a match.
(Street match in La Boca)
During my conversations with the students, and perhaps because of my own research interests, the role of heritage and its relationship to Argentinian fútbol has become a focal point of our discussions. One of the aspects I pointed out to the students, particularly after we toured La Bombonera – home of Boca Juniors – and visited the team museum, is that heritage (including team traditions, history, rituals, and culture) is one of the products that is packaged and sold to fans both locally and globally. Similarly, I told them that touring team museums and stadiums was, in a sense, an entry-point for many to acquire or re-enforce their fandom. Judging by the number of students who left La Bombonera with Boca merchandise (and who said they would support Boca upon their return to the US, despite the fact we did not actually see Boca play in their home stadium), there is something to the theory that experiencing heritage may lead to support and fandom.
(Touring La Bombonera)
The students noticed that, despite the local cultures and chants, the teams were largely sponsored by international companies – and, often, American companies like DirectTV. They also commented that most of the music played in the stadiums we went to were American or British artists.
(Watching a game at El Monumental, home of River Plate)
However, the interesting thing that the students did mention – and related to both globalization and heritage – were the styles of play they were encountering when playing against Argentinian clubs. They noted that it was a very distinct style of play, similar to the style that the Argentinian national team plays, primarily in terms of speed and aggression. Interestingly, they noted that some of the teams they’ve played anticipated a very “American” style of play from Clemson, and were surprised when Clemson played above expectations. Similarly, they have noted both the style of refereeing to be different and, in some cases, more knowledgable than US referees (with a few exceptions). They have also been enamoured with the fact that they are immersed in a soccer culture all the time, something that they rarely get to experience in the US.
(Clemson versus San Lorenzo, with the Estadio Pedro Bidegain in the background)
One of the interesting aspects I have noticed at each of the grounds we have visited are the murals situated outside of the stadiums. While many are fútbol-related, others appear to be more about social and political struggle.
(Two murals, one fútbol-related at San Lorenzo, the other more politically related at Boca Juniors)
We still have a few days remaining in-country, and I expect there will be more lessons to be learned – both on and off the pitch. We have seen some of the impacts of inflation in the country, and while in Buenos Aires we witnessed several major protests right on our doorstep. The students have two more games to play in Rosario, as well as a number of non-sport activities including a city tour, and I expect we will have many more interesting discussions about globalization, heritage, and soccer.
Section K, Row 14
For the better part of my life, I have been fascinated with sports stadiums.
I have been fascinated with sports stadiums not so much for how they are operated, or constructed, or designed – but, rather, that sports stadiums are somehow meaningful. They are, as geographer John Bale argues, more than just utilitarian structures where games are played. We have imbued sports stadiums with particular meanings, values, and identities that we don’t do for many other places, save perhaps for our own childhood homes or monuments of national importance. We are, to cite another geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, topophilic about them – that is to say, we speak of them as very special places that, in many cases, we love.
Indeed, this interest in the meanings of sports stadiums has driven much of my research in sport heritage, looking at why millions of people will travel thousands of miles simply to tour empty sports venues. In some cases, people go to them because of a famous event happened there, or a famous team or athlete plays there. Other times, it is because the stadium is particularly old, or has a unique design or aesthetics. But, often, the love of sports venues is because there is a personal connection to them – of games seen, and people we’ve gone to see them with.
I’ve been very fortunate to tour numerous globally famous stadiums and, while many of them are important to me personally, few are as particularly special to me as Rexall Place (nee: Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton Coliseum, Skyreach Centre) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – which is most famous for being the home of the Edmonton Oilers hockey club.
This week sees the final Oilers game played at Rexall Place, as the Oilers are moving to a new arena next season. The future of Rexall Place has not yet been determined though, whether it is renovated or demolished, it will have little resemblance to it’s current form.
One of the ironic aspects of remembering Rexall Place, particularly in using terms like topophilla about it, is actually just how architecturally unremarkable it is. It is the epitome of the placeless, utilitarian venue both inside and out.
And, yet, I can safely argue it probably is the most important symbol of personal heritage to me. It is a repository of so many memories, of events of all sorts – not just hockey – seen with so many loved ones. I can still vaguely remember my first game, and though the details of the game itself are somewhat lost (1980 or 1981, maybe. Definitely against the Bruins. And, I think, a 2-2 tie), I went with my dad, sat at centre ice about halfway up in the 200s (or the Blues, as we called them), from tickets he had bought from a scalper outside the door. I remember seeing demolition derbys at the summer fair with my family, Hulk Hogan wrestling cards with my best friend, innumerable hard rock and heavy metal concerts with high school buddies. But, inevitably, I come back to the hockey games, because those were the ones I still remember.
And, I was at some pretty famous games: Game Five versus the Islanders in 1984 when they won their first Stanley Cup, and the relocated-from-Boston Game Four in 1988 when they won their fourth Stanley Cup. I should have seen them win the Cup in at Game Five in the 1987 Cup Finals as well – but, the Philadelphia Flyers had other ideas, though my brother got to see them win it in Game Seven a few days later. I was also at the infamous miss the empty net game, and the incredible Game Six victory over Detroit in the 2006 Cup run. There were, of course, many games – many seasons, even – that blur into memory. During the mid 1990s, when the building was half-full, my friend and I became defacto season ticket holders, as tickets were in very low demand and very inexpensive to obtain (not to mention we could sit almost anywhere we wanted).
More than anything, though, I remember who I went with and, more than anything, those are the memories I have when I think about Rexall Place. My mother, father, and brother are who I think of most, and how hockey games were some of my best family memories growing up. Into my 20s and 30s, it was friends and girlfriends, when the hockey game was part of a night on the town.
I considered coming back to Edmonton this season, just to see Rexall Place one more time. My brother and I, in particular, thought we would try and get some tickets near where our father’s tickets were in the 1980s – Section K, Row 14. Neither Section K or Row 14 exist anymore, the red seats removed during a mid 90s renovation, but I decided against going back. Perhaps because hockey is not necessarily a large part of my life anymore, or maybe because one last visit seemed unnecessary, I simply decided it wasn’t worth it. But I did slightly regret not going back one more time, just to be with my people in a place that meant so much to me for so long.
However, last week, it all came around full circle. My wife and son went up to Edmonton to visit friends and family, and she decided to take our hockey-obsessed boy – along with my parents – for his first visit to the old rink.
My son, born and raised in South Carolina, experiencing a place that meant so much to me, along with the people who took me for so many years. This is the way it should end.
Farewell Rexall Place.
Sport Heritage Trails
Here in the United States, we have seen an increase in the ways that heritage is presented, marketed, and sustained – particularly in rural regions. Many small towns and communities have museums, historic sites, and heritage markers that – individually – may have challenges attracting visitors and interest. The new approach – which is also seen in broader forms of heritage designation, including at the World Heritage level – is to view heritage more holistically, at least in terms of geography.
As such many sites are linking together as part of theme-based heritage “trails” in order to both adequately reflect connections between sites as well as pool resources for marketing and promotion. Theme-based trails have demonstrated some success in rural economic development and can be important catalysts for identifying, recognizing, and sustaining important aspects of culture, heritage, and industry in rural and peripheral regions. Typical themes for trails include religious and pilgrimage routes, migration and trade routes, as well as industrial, cultural, and literary routes, although food-based trails have also become popular trail theme in recent years. It is assumed that all members of trails share common goals as to the purpose and outcomes of trail development, although this may not always be the case.
In any event, though many other forms of heritage – particularly those specific to popular cultures like music, literature, and food – have embraced the heritage trail concept, there appear to be relatively few sport heritage-specific trails that link sporting attractions, sites, places, and markers together. Perhaps the best local example of this concept might be the Packers Heritage Trail in Green Bay, that links important sites in the community to the heritage of the Green Bay Packers football team. On a broader regional basis, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama is one example of a sporting trail, though the actual historical/heritage component this trail is perhaps not as prominent as would exist in other regional heritage trails like the Virginia “Crooked Road” music trail.
The seemingly limited use of sport heritage in trail development begs a few questions. First, are there other trails besides the ones listed above that are exclusively sport-based, particularly those that are regional driving trails (i.e.: require a car) rather than a local walking trail? Second, if sport heritage is not being used as a theme for trail development, why is it not being used? Has it not been considered, or has it been considered and dismissed? Third, if sport heritage has been considered and dismissed in trail development, what were the reasons? Does it have to do with marketability, or lack of sites/attractions in a region, or something else (e.g.: competition between sites)?
Sport heritage seems like it could be a strong theme for some kind of trail development – particularly around a common theme like particular sports (baseball, basketball, hockey) or famous athletes. Yet, there are apparently few examples of sport heritage being used in trail development, and I am curious as to why this is the case.
Sport Heritage Review 