Well, it is Saturday night and all my Canadian readers know exactly what the above letters mean. Everyone else in the world assumes that I just typed four letters at random, and I'm going to go ahead and let you continue thinking that, for a minute anyways ...
Pierre Berton once defined a Canadian as 'someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.' While possible apt, I would argue that this definition is at its best, regional. Additionally, there are those 'You know you are a Canadian' email lists that inevitably make their way through our inboxes every year or so that have things such as having a Halloween costume that can fit under a snowsuit. Once again, I do indeed have a picture of me as a toddler wearing what appears to be a snowsuit and a plastic clown mask. All this being said, I would argue that the essence of a Canadian is their intimate knowledge of HNIC.
There is a large and wonderful collective of things that can be defined as truly Canadian, that is to say things that are either at their essence truly Canadian or simply great but only known for the most part to the Canadian populace. Of the top of my head I would list: Tim Hortons, Smarties, Moosehead (beer), the Tragically Hip, David Suzuki, and bacon - once again with the disclaimer that I've names only a handful off the top of my head. However, if you really want to set off a group of Canucks, (in a good way) all on has to do is starting humming the opening notes to a single theme song.
Hockey Night In Canada (HNIC) has been a national institution since 1952, when Foster Hewitt's familiar "Hello, Canada!" ushered hockey fans into the era of television. It was the greeting he had been using on the radio broadcast of the same name since its first coast-to-coast coverage of a 1933 contest between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, coming two years after the radio broadcast of the opening game at the new Maple Leaf Gardens on Carlton Street in downtown Toronto. I remember my first game at the Gardens, as I myself am an Leafs fan. We are all such a proud group, especially for one who has so very little to be proud of ...
Still, sitting on a father's lap watching a game. Watching it through a store window at a bus stop. it was always playing in a corner of a stag-and-doe, a wedding, a funeral, almost everywhere that people gathered whether or not they should have been doing something else. It is the essence of Canada. I planned on speaking a lot more about this great country I call home but I can see that I've gone on long enough. Let me only say my customary cheers here and leave you with one last thing (Yes I know the video quality is terrible, its for copyright reasons - the CBC is apparently sort of possessive):
Canadian HNIC Maple+Leafs Hockey+Night+In+Canada cheers!