My husband brainwashed our boys

and got away with it

I had plans, big plans. We would gather every Saturday night as the Hockey Night in Canada theme song played. Baa-badda-badaaaa badababap 🎶🎶. There we would be, on our living room sofa, eyes trained on the screen, watching whoever the heir-apparents were to Saku Koivu, PK Subban, and Carey Price. Our two little boys would pick their favourite players, scream Go Habs Go at the tv set, shout at the goals and the saves and the near-misses.

It all fell apart so quickly.

Sure, I have early video of them, still toddlers, barely able to stand as they cheer in slurred baby voices. Go Habs Go, they shriek in that unhinged way only toddlers can, bouncing on their back heels, drunk with the power of staying up past bedtime.

But by the time we get to first grade, we’re facing our first big challenge: the hometown Ottawa Senators. D comes home from school one day announcing he is now a Sens fan. My heart shrivels. I think of a million reasons with which to convince him, and then I realize my best bet is to keep my mouth shut. The next week, he’s back to the Habs.

Quietly, the whole time, my husband is laying his trap. It’s brilliant in its simplicity: All he does is watch soccer. In the living room. On the big TV that can’t be missed. On a Saturday. Well before their bedtime.

At first, the boys run past him on their way to or from a game in the backyard. Over time though, they sit on the couch. They ask questions. Who is the man with the same name as Baba and the mane of curly hair setting records for Liverpool. Where is Liverpool?

I watch in dismay as their detours to the couch get longer, until the detours are to the backyard, to the basement. The conversations become more involved. Names are bandied about that I don’t recognize. Plays are discussed that I can’t follow.

We are turning into a soccer house, against my will.

“Hockey" by Cyril E. Power (ca. 1931)

But wait!

My beloved Habs will save me. In the depths of the pandemic, they play Cinderella, stringing together an impossible playoff run. My dream, after so many years, manifesting: we gather in the living room, eyes glued to the tv, rising and falling in nervous joy with every goal and save, screaming at the missed nets and the hits and the breakaways.

If my Habs can win it all, I think, my boys can fall in love again with hockey.

I can pull them back from the lure of soccer, from the announcers with their silly little British accents and their poetry as commentary.

And my Habs? They come so close. They really do.

They get to the finals before losing to Goliath, the Tampa Bay Lighting. And just like that, the spell is broken. We are almost at the mountain top and we come crashing back to earth.

My husband’s team—my husband’s sport—does not come crashing to earth. Liverpool has delivered a Premier League title at the start of the pandemic, in those darkest days, when all we wanted was hope and distraction.

What can my Habs do in the face of such irresistible competition? How can they ever compete?

My husband brainwashed our boys, and he won.

We haven’t watched a full game of hockey in years¹. Meanwhile, Liverpool has just secured another Premier League title. My husband’s namesake, Mohamed Salah, has extended for another two seasons. I still don’t understand the plays and new players keep showing up that I don’t recognize.

But I know when I’m beat. Long live the beautiful game.

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Shout out to my husband who is a great sport when I write these cheeky pieces 😅.

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Tell me: Do you have a sports rivalry in your family? Or do you try to get the young’uns into different things? How does that go?

1. Interestingly, we have been watching in this most recent round of playoffs, what with our Habs having finally made it for the first time since that Cinderella run, only to lose to the Capitals in 5 games. We’ve also been watching Sens-Leafs. Let’s see how long it lasts.