4 TT oe eV TTC —, SPORTLIGHT._ By GEORGE SNOWDEN | The Cup madness is on again, once more in the Strange and staid city of Tor- : %Mto. Among other incidental q attractions, the festivities will Vitctlude a football game be- Grey -} ‘Ween the Edmonton Eskimos ‘hd Montreal Alouettes which 7° course, the Edmontonians 7 Will win, hand-running. The Eskimos won over the Alouettes in 1954 and again in 1955 and, though there have 7 en some profound changes /® the international scene ‘ice then, the status quo of @ gridiron has been main- ained as rigidly as ever. Thus, with supreme confi- ence, we can say the Eskies Will pole-axe Montreal once 7} Sain — and having said it, | We can move along to the real Subject of today’s essay which } “What is Canada’s nation- 7 sport — hockey, lacrosse, | ® Canadian football?” ; it t mt Those Vancouverites who Sitvived the Grey Cup insan- ‘WY of last fall when it was in- €d, without fear or favor, M even the most innocent of *ystanders (including cricket “NG soccer fans who, after all, also people) will not hesi- € to answer, “Football is Y national sport, the. Grey Proves that.” And so, at the moment, it €ly seems to be. It is regret- €, of course, but a fact ertheless, and we must a to live with it — but only rf a time. Like feudalism, Anasta, Davey Crocket hats ;. other passing fads, how- Yer, football -will. eventually relegated to the garbage ] f. of history. Or, if no gar- &€ can is handy, to the com-+ act heap of history. That -is Nevitable. _. *ootball is no more Canada’s ei, national sport than is §0. As practised today it is Ubtful that football is even eect. It is more a free-en- } \*Pise carnival, promoted by ‘Tess agents and business- 7 a and supported by thou- 7 “he of fans who fancy them- ves to be experts on the ; Boe but who, put to the test, \ Suldn’t know a split-T if i came across one in a Wl of clam chowder. * th at J yvten Big Four football was Yed' here years ago in old a Athled: 4 pnictic Park, without accom- - onment of fanfare, beauty > Mests and mayors in ten B fa (0) : qe n hats, the people, quite j belbly, stayed home and a Wh warm, The hardy types “Tish, felt up to running the of pneumonia took in the peeer match at at Brockton yr catenin g Tones or the fitba’ at Con Taste little band of football | le | lo S who showed up at Ath- ot, Park were in fact, not xt all fans at all but chiefly °Verted youngsters from who came crowds in the _ where, indeed, the € is a national sport. But then, they have Dulles, too! Today, the hirelings of the capital _press, seeking to di- vert the minds of the masses from the: truly | proletarian sport of hockey, have succeed- ed in making the people think they like to watch football. Well, it won’t last. It won’t last because football is only a craze, as miniature’ golf was in the thirties. Hockey fans, lacrosse fans and especially soccer fans know their games —they know the tactics, strat- egy, the lore of their sports. But the football fan is mere- ly dazzled by a carnival and the mysteries of a game that only the paid experts are able to unravel. 50 os Which, then, is Canada’s na- tional sport — lacrosse or hockey? Lacrosse, of course, has al- most always been referred to as “Canada’s national game,” partly because it was first played by the original Cana- dians, the native Indians. In the thirties, box-lacrosse enjoyed tremendous popular- ity in Vancouver and New Westminster, in the West, and in such. Ontario centres as Or- illia, Mimico, Brampton and Hamilton. Mann Cup games between east and west played to sell-out crowds. But, even -in its hey-day, lacrosse was a major sport in only one major city — Vancouver. What killed lacross in Van- couver? It is difficult to give a definitive answer but cer- tainly the violence that marred the game was a factor in its sudden loss of support. A new attempt to revive the game among youth (in the thirties no normal kid would go to bed without his lacrosse stick tucked under his pillow) was made this week by John- ny Cavallin. Cavallin, one of the great players of the thirties, appear- ed before Vancouver School Board to urge that lacrosse be included in the high and jun- ior high athletic program. Cavallin told the trustees that lacrosse had been found to be the third safest game play- ed in Canada. He noted that English school girls play field lacross and argued that rug- ged Canadian school boys ought to be able to run the same risk. We suspect that Johnny, who carries more scars from the boxla wars than the school board has pencils, had his tongue in cheek when he told the trustees that one. No lacrosse is not Canada’s national game, even though it has a better claim on that title than has football. That honor belongs, as €v- ery right-minded, red-blooded Canadian knows, to hockey, which is by far the best game to watch or to play. It is not only the best Canadian game, but the best in the world. Anyone for tennis? BERT WHYTE ON SICK LEAVE eS Se = SNS ~& Nashua is being retired from active racing. groom Al Robertson lead the world’s ranking winning the Jockey Club gold cup. The victory total of. $1,288,565. Here trainer Sunny Jim Simmons and money-making horse from Belmont after brought Nashua’s winnings to a record Notes on the Olympic Games Hungarian athletes who tore down the old flag of the Peo- ple’s Republic at the Olympic Village did that new Premier Janos Kadar had anticipated them. not realise Kadar announced _ earlier that the emblem of Kossuth, hero of the 1848 Revolution, would be incorporated in the flag. When the former flag was run up at the Olympic Village it was torn down. Amid cheers the Kossuth flag, bearing a black stripe of mourning, was then run up. Later the team apologized to the Hungarian chef de mis- sion for their “over-enthusi- astic” action. * * « Angriest official ,in Mel- bourne was Prof. Josef Gruss, Czechoslovak member of the * Nina Ponomareva, the Soviet discus thrower, is shown receiving a badge from U.S. International Olympic Com- mittee, who described as “a damned lie” a report that the Czechs had threatened the Hungarian Olympic team with internment if they. did not go to Melbourne. He said the Czech Olympic Committee had put the team into schools, had guaranteed the money for their plane fares and given them some pocket money. swimmer Jean Rosazzoz, of Terrington, Conn., during a get-together at the Olympic Village near Melbourne. Another U.S. swimmer, Doug Gray, of Washington, D.C., looks on. NOVEMBER 23, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIRUNE — Page 15