Montreal Canadiens Hockey Team And The Fans example essay topic

A sports team is vital to a large city such as Montreal. A sports team may have positive or negative impacts on a city. The team that will be focused on is the Montreal Canadiens. Despite the poor seasons that the team has recently endured, the Montreal Canadiens are still one of the most winning est franchises in all of sports. The team's long history as a winning organization has made the city of Montreal reputable. For my research, the three disciplines that will be focused on are sociology, geography, and economics.

These disciplines are very much evident and important to my research topic, that being, the importance the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club for the City of Montreal. With the use of sources related to my topic, one will be able to grasp the overall context of my research. The direct question that my research intends to answer is; how has the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club impacted the City of Montreal as a whole? Literature Review The discipline of sociology studies groups of people in a specific area. In this case, the people we will focus on are the players playing for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and the fans that support the team. After viewing a video on the Montreal Canadiens during the 1988-1989 season (Fisher 1989), the discipline of sociology is very much evident in this video.

The video takes an in depth viewing of the team during the 1988-1989 season. It looks at the ups and downs the team faced during this particular season and how the Montreal Canadiens have over come obstacles. During the 1988-1989 season, the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup final where they lost to the Calgary Flames in six games. A few years earlier, in 1986, the Canadiens beat those same Calgary Flames to win their twenty-third Stanley Cup. The player that led the Canadiens during the 1988-1989 season was none other than goaltender Patrick Roy. The pressures that were placed on the shoulders' of Roy were unbelievable.

This pressure came from fans and media alike. The fact he was a French-Canadian that grew up cheering for the Canadiens, did not help either. As Patrick said in the video, "Hockey in Montreal is not a sport, it's a religion". Also interviewed was captain Guy Carbonneau, who stated that, "this team is like one huge family... Each player on this team stands up for each other... This is what makes this team so close".

An incident in the video had a direct connection to what captain Guy Carbonneau stated earlier. This incident took place during a playoff game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers. The incident occurred when goaltender of the Flyers, Ron Hex tall, left his crease to fight Chris C helios of the Canadiens. Soon after a brawl erupted. This incident showed that no matter who is involved, the whole team stands up for each other.

As mentioned in "Sociology: Problems and Perspectives", "Sociologists draw an important distinction between the purposes of our behaviour-what we intend to do-and the unintended consequences that our behaviour brings about. The purposes for which we do things may be very different from the consequences we produce". (Giddens 1991, 8) This gives a sort of an understanding for why the players stand up for each and that their actions, which led to a brawl, have consequences. As mentioned in "Sociology in our Times" Using the objective method, researchers assign individuals to social classes based on predetermined criteria (occupation, source, and amount of income, amount of education, and type and area of residence" (Kendall, Linden and Murray 1998,227) People that can afford to pay the high ticket prices to go to hockey games are the ones in the middle to upper class who live in the well-established parts of the city. The geographical location of Montreal makes it a great city in which to live. The factors that make Montreal a great place to live is the physical landscape, language diversity and its diverse ethnic groups.

"The original settlement grew up around the residence of de Maisonneuve, the first governor of Montreal, on St. Paul Street. The town site was chosen with an eye to defence; it was surrounded on three sides by the St. Lawrence River and its small tributaries, the St. Martin and St. Pierre rivers" (Nader 1976,137). Despite Montreal's political situation which divides people on their views on how Montreal should be govern, the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Team helps to bring these people together. The only thing that people focus on when it comes to the Montreal Canadiens is winning. As mentioned in Rubenstein (1994)", Geography's most fundamental principle is that location is important: the location of people, activities, and environments can help explain human behaviour and can help solve human problems.

Just as historians study the logical sequence of human activities in time, so do geographers study the logical arrangement of human activities in space" (1). The physical location of the Montreal Canadiens in the downtown core is very important. The old Montreal Forum that is just located next to Dawson College was a good location due to the accessible transportation via the Atwater metro. The fact we face a harsh winter climate, accessible transportation is very important. As mentioned in "Language, Ethnic Groups and the Shaping of Social Space", the excellent transit system makes it quite easy for immigrants in most parts of Montreal Island to travel considerable distances to work or seek out social support from other members or institutions of their ethnic community located in other parts of town" (Germain and Rose 2000, 63). The fairly new Molson Centre located on St. Antoine Street West has an even better transit system than the Montreal Forum.

One can get off at Lucien l'Allier and not even walk outside against the elements. This is good because or our harsh winters that we endure year after year. There is also a train that runs from the West-Island to the downtown core that stops right in front of the Molson Centre. This transportation is aimed to help decrease the traffic in the downtown area, especially near and around the Molson Centre. Over the years the Montreal Canadiens have built a rivalry with many teams.

These teams include the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Ottawa Senators, and the former Quebec Nordiques that are presently the Colorado Avalanche. For the exception of the Colorado Avalanche, the rivalry is based on geographical location. Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa are basically close together. The famous 401 is what separates and links Montreal and Toronto. Another example, which shows how geography plays a key role in the sport of hockey is that the city of Hamilton placed a bid to have a professional hockey team (NHL). The NHL refused to grant the bid proposed due to the close proximity of other NHL teams such as Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit, and Ottawa.

There are not enough people in the region to economically support the team. The discipline of economics plays a major role in sports today. Hockey, for example, has been Canada's favourite sport for many years, but lately has declined. This decline is directly related to economics. The situation of the Canadian dollar versus that of the United States is the main reason for the decline of professional sports in Canada. Canadian sports teams are at a disadvantage when it comes to paying players salaries.

Many hockey players are opting to play for American teams because of the economic situation that Canadian teams are presently in. Canadian teams cannot compete with American teams. Many Canadian hockey teams are getting financial support from the Canadian government to help to ease the economic instability of these teams. As mentioned in "Gillett says the right things", Fisher (2001) states, "Bourque said the $16.8-million payout to Molson won't affect the city's 2001 operating budget because it was setting aside funds to cover itself just in case it lost the Molson tax challenge... But the taxpayers are coughing up more than $16.8 million to settle the case" (Fisher 2001 sec B 6). With the exceptions of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, the rest of Canadian hockey teams being Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton are all small market teams.

A market is defined as being, "Legal stu cures that allow individual or corporations the right to privately own the resources necessary for production-land, natural resources, buildings, equipment, etc. -and to dispose of these as they see fit. The driving force of this mode of social organization is the accumulation of money (profit) " (Bastien 1997, 1). The owners of these teams, especially American, do not help the cause either. They offer players huge salaries to sign with their team. An example to illustrate this would be in baseball, "the signing of Alex Rodriguez to a 10 year, $252 million dollar U. S contract. How can Canadian teams, in general, compete with these salaries?

It's not the player's fault for asking for these salaries, it's the owner's fault for granting these ridiculous contracts" (Cole 2000, sec C 1). The idea that owners have is to sign these players so that the fans come and see them. The problem is that the signing of these players to ridiculous contracts hurts the fans because ticket prices must increase to help pay the contract. The same applies to hockey, to have a competitive team, the owners must spend money in order to get talented hockey players to help their hockey team. Despite the economic situation of teams in Canada, they, contribute to the economy where they are situated. "The main direct, tangible economic boost that results from building a stadium, and keeping a sports team, is the new dollars brought into the metropolitan economy by the additional fans attracted" (Bar tik 1998,411-415).

For example the Montreal Canadien's move from the historic Montreal Forum to the new and up to date Molson Centre has helped the economy of Montreal. More new jobs were created with the move, the cost of the building and rent being paid to the city and the tourists that come and see the most storied and winning est franchise in hockey history. There are many other economic establishments that were created as a direct result from the team maintaining their residence in the city. The downfall is that with the moving of the team to the new Molson Centre, many establishments were forced to close in and around the Forum. This is very apparent in Place Alexis Neon. Empirical Study To further my research, I constructed a questionnaire (see Annex 1) that consisted of a total of eleven questions.

These questions are directly related to my main hypotheses, that being, How has the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club impacted the City of Montreal? The variables that are present is the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club and whether or not the impact the hockey team has on the city is positive or negative. The questionnaire was set-up according to the participants participating in my research. Of the questions developed, questions 1 to 4 are personal questions. I intended to do this to be better acquainted with the participants. These questions focus on such things as gender, age, place of residence, and the type of job that the participants occupy.

Questions 5 to 11 are more specific, that focuses on my topic at hand. The dependent variables are the questions that were constructed and the answers to these questions. I preformed my research at Moe's Deli and Bar (next to the Molson Centre) on Saturday March 31. There were many people from Toronto that were present in this establishment. The reason for this was that the Toronto Maple Leafs were in town on this night to play the Montreal Canadiens. I arrived at Moe's at 4: 00 PM.

The place was filled to capacity. It took fifteen minutes to be seated. Once seated, at random I chose ten people to participate in my research (seven male and three female). I had no problems with the participants or the management of this establishment concerning my research. All of the participants gladly accepted my invitation to complete the questionnaire.

After distributing the questionnaire to the participants and receiving them back, I went to the hockey game. I was able to further my research even more. I was able to study the behaviour of the people in attendance. I did so by viewing the expressions, whether it be physical and / or vocal, of the people in attendance by taking notes based on what I saw in the audience. Discussion There were a total of ten people chosen at random that participated in this research.

Of the people that were chosen, seven were male and three were female. The ages of participants varied from 35 to 50. Six out of the ten participants lived in Montreal, two lived on the South Shore (Broussard and Greenfield Park) and the final two lived in the West Island (Kirkland and Pointe-Claire). Despite the large number of people that were from Toronto, only participants from Montreal were able to participate in the research questionnaire. The reason for this is that the questionnaire was constructed with only the residences of Montreal in mind. Four of the participants possessed a service industry occupation, three possessed a blue-collar occupation, two had a professional occupation, while one had a clerical occupation.

All of the participants answered that they have gone to a Montreal Canadiens hockey game at least once in their lives. Nine of the participants stated their opinion that the Montreal Canadiens' current standing is very disappointing. One of the participants stated that he was happy the Montreal Canadiens weren't making the playoffs because he was a Toronto Maple Leaf fan. All of the participants stated that the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club had a positive impact on the city of Montreal. The economic aspect of the team, creating employment, was the major factor in deciding this. All the participants agreed that the city of Montreal would not be better off without the Montreal Canadiens because many people would lose their jobs if they left.

Five of participants stated that the team should not be sold to an American buyer, while the other five stated it did not matter, just as long as the team stays in Montreal. Basically all of the participants stated the team has to draft better players, make better trades and spend some money and acquire some talented free agents. All of the participants disagree with the current price of hockey tickets, factoring in the lack of winning over the past few seasons. Once I entered the Molson Centre, I heard the chanting of the Toronto Maple Leaf fans yelling out "Go Leafs Go" and the chanting of the famous "Go Habs Go" that we are so very accustom to.

Once the game got under way, I noticed that the Montreal Canadiens' fans were coming together, supporting their team. Fans from both teams were expressing themselves, by yelling, whistling, and clapping their hands. It seemed that everyone was enjoying themselves. In general people were having a great time.

A large percentage of the people were consuming products sold at the Molson Centre. These products include alcoholic beverages such as beer and hard liquor and non-alcoholic beverages such as soft drinks. Food products such as pizza, hotdogs, nachos, pretzels, popcorn and cookies were being consumed by the people in attendance. The questions that were constructed in my questionnaire were designed to answer my research question. I composed my questionnaire around my research question.

The results of my fieldwork take into account the three disciplines that my literature review is based on, that being, sociology, geography, and economics. From the answer (s) that was derived from my fieldwork, the impact the Montreal Canadiens has on the city of Montreal as a whole is positive. Conclusion To explain the importance a sports team has on a city, a new avenue for future research would be the traveling to a city that lost a professional sports team and research the impact it had on places such as Winnipeg and Quebec, where the Winnipeg Jets and the Quebec Nordiques used to play respectfully. Economically, jobs are created within and around the team and city, which geographically is the reason why businesses are set up where they are, and sociologically, people come together in the supporting of their team. These three disciplines are lost with losing of a professional sports team.

To conclude this report, the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club has a positive impact on the city of Montreal as a whole.