June 14, 2019
Kathy Jia-Jones
Every Canadian was glued to the TV, literarily or remotely, to watch Raptors’ every move, every jump, and every throw when the NBA championship game was being held at Oakland Oracle Arena last night.
Counting down to the last few seconds…then recounting down to the last few seconds….the longest few seconds….Finally, the clock stopped ticking. It was final: The Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors 114-110 and leaped into NBA champions for the first time in 24 years!
Canadians went wild, like you had never seen before. Instantly Toronto Raptors’ win united Canada and brought Canadians together like no other:
• husbands and wives
• parents and children
• neighbours–I don’t think any robbers would want to break any other fellow Canadians’ homes on a night like this.
• genders—women and men alike were proud of the Raptors.
• old and new Canadian immigrants from different parts of the world –Suddenly they forgot where they all came from; they were Canadians at the moments, period.
With a glowing heart I quickly tweeted the big news to my overseas friends. I didn’t get any response for a minute.
I sent another one: “Canada invented basketball”. No reply.
I added: “My son plays basketball (didn’t mention hockey). No reply.
“They cannot be all sleeping in their broad daylight”, I thought to myself, and tried one more:
“This is the first time the Canadian team won the NBA Championship in 24 years”! Then slowly thumb-ups and polite cheering words started coming in. I thanked them, feeling awkward.
This year happens to be my 30th anniversary of living in Canada. Raptors’ win just adds that much more pride, despite the fact that most Raptors’ players are not Canadians.
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