Today’s letters: ByWard Market rink idea isn’t about hockey

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Here’s why not everyone loves hockey

Re: ByWard Market officials consider buying synthetic ice skating rink, Oct. 14; and Letter, Stop assuming we all love hockey, Oct. 19.

I doubt that a skating rink in the ByWard Market would be used for
hockey, but I do agree with a recent letter-writer’s argument that professional hockey, touted as Canada’s national sport, is neither liked nor
supported by many of us.

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Advertisements on TV show little of how the game should be played, instead focusing on bodies flying through the air after a violent check, and plenty of footage of grown men punching each other in the face. Children learn that if this is the way to settle a dispute on the ice, why not elsewhere? It becomes part of their, and our culture, and it is a disgrace.

Little is said about the several “enforcers” who have developed severe or fatal brain injuries after leaving the game. Virtually no other sport allows fighting. Why hockey?

Jack Stow Orleans

Market rink won’t be a hockey hotspot

A letter-writer suggests that the proposal of a synthetic skating rink in the ByWard Market is flawed because “not everyone in this city or the country is a fanatical hockey fan” and also shares that some don’t even like the game.

But the Ottawa Citizen article about the ByWard Market synthetic rink describes it as a “skating rink” with uses beyond “public skating” — including a proposed red-carpet fashion show on the pad. There is no mention of it being used for hockey, apart from a possible three-on-three tournament on the Canada Day weekend.

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So it is not, in fact, a hockey rink. There are lots of people in Ottawa who enjoy public skating, and that’s the main use for which this rink is being considered.

Cyril Butler, Ottawa

Teach our children that all lives matter

Re: What should we be telling our kids about war? Oct. 17.

Arron Neal makes important points but has overlooked teachings that I consider more important. The most important thing to teach children about war is that distance and ethnicity are irrelevant. Death, injury and suffering are horrible no matter what language the victims speak, what religion they have, or what colour their skin is. Destruction of homes and infrastructure is terrible no matter where it happens.

Our media and political leaders send the opposite message. A few deaths or injuries on our continent get more attention than thousands of killings halfway around the world. We see more pictures of nearby wind and flood damage than of the near-total destruction in war-torn countries. Sending help to nearby victims is praised but expressing sympathy for those who are suffering far away is sometimes condemned. We have to teach our children that this is wrong. They must understand that the right to a safe and peaceful life is universal.

Our children also have to be taught that violence is the wrong way to resolve conflicts no matter where it happens or who it hurts. They have to understand that we cannot live peacefully here while supporting wars elsewhere.

Dave Parnas, Ottawa

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