Tuning out the Tube

I'm sitting here at the computer watching game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals on CBC Sports online. That's hockey for those not in the know. It's around this time every year where I get a bit of a hankering for TV. In fact it is kind of ironic that I now miss TV for the sake of hockey, because when I was a young kid I actually quit minor hockey at about the age of 7 because I was so addicted to TV that I did not want to miss my Saturday morning cartoons, and that is when hockey practice was. And I went through pretty much most of the rest of my life majorly addicted to the Tube - watching it for the sake of watching it.

Until we had our first kid. Actually it was a bit by accident how we decided to turn of the Tube for good. Most of you in North America at least will recall the massive east-coast blackout we had in 2003. Our youngest son was about 15 or 16 months old at the time, and we'd already been discussing the possibility of just cancelling our dish and getting rid of TV because we did not like the idea of our kids being exposed to all that advertising, not to mention the addiction. When we were forced to go a day or so without TV because of the blackout, we realised and were actually very surprised how easy it was to do. So without any 2nd thoughts we called and cancelled, and sold the dish. And have not looked back.

We kept the TV set of course, so that we could watch DVDs. And later we bought a video game system and use the TV for that. We bought someone else's castoffs when they were upgrading to the latest and greatest (picked up an Xbox and Gamecube for about $100, and a crapload of games for both for about the same). A few years ago when the Ottawa Senators made it to the Stanley Cup finals, we decided to rig up an antenna and see what we could get over-the-air. We watched the final series and decided at the time to keep the antenna hooked up. Though a few months later we took it down again and have not had "TV" since.

A bit of a funny story that we're actually kind of proud of - when our oldest was about 4 and our youngest about 2, we went to Nova Scotia to visit our parents, and while at my wife's parents place the boys were watching cartoons on TV. A commercial came on, and having no idea in the world what commercials were, our oldest immediately turned to our youngest and blamed him for messing up the TV - and of course immediately began to pummel him (sigh). Somehow, I think that should be the norm.

I have not really been into hockey very much since the Senators made the final round a few years ago, but tonight I really wanted to watch the game and managed to find it with only a bit of googling. I should also note that our boys do have a TV set in their room the last year or so, mainly for playing video games. But they can also get some over-the-air TV stations - mainly a pretty fuzzy TV Ontario. TVO is like PBS in the US, not so much like our national CBC broadcaster. Very high quality programming and very low on the commercial front. I don't mind a bit if the boys watch it.

As far as hockey goes, I guess a large part of the reason it does not interest me so much anymore is that I have come to realise that it has long-since not been about rooting for the hometown boys, as much as the team owners would like us to think otherwise. It is simply another corporation, trying its best to suck money out of us all. Way back in the day, hockey teams used to be mainly hometown boys, and pitting your city's team against another city's team had something to do with pride and good old fashioned fun. Much like the minor leagues when growing up. But nowadays players get traded every few years, and only a very small percentage of players are hometown. The incessant trading is what gets me most - it is just another sign of "grass-is-always-greenerism" - where nobody is ever happy these days with what they have. Yup, it is still definitely great to watch really good caliber hockey - but it just does not seem to mean the same thing it used to.