Every once in a while I have a "this can't be real/this can't be happening" moment. A couple of years back, it was "Little Mosque on the Prairies". The first time I saw the ad for this show, I assumed someone had hacked the CBC site, but no, this was real and the folks at CBC are now mighty proud of their little comedy piece about those wacky Muslims.
Tonight was another one of those moments.
I was trying to find out the schedule for the next Canada Juniors hockey game. I ended up at cbcsports.ca. And what did I see? Hockey Night in Canada -- in Punjabi. Punjabi? Canada's taxpayer-funded network is spending taxpayer funds to broadcast in Punjabi?! This is, apparently, in addition to broadcasting in Mandarin. A CBC spokesperson said how proud he was that the CBC was opening Canada's game to new audiences. Opening the game to new audiences? You mean the punjabi-speaking immigrants can't speak either English or French, and the CBC feels obligated to serve them hockey in their native language?
If there are immigrants who need hockey in Punjabi because they can't speak English, shouldn't the taxpayers' money be spent to teach immigrants, you know, English and French?
I still haven't been able to figure out when the next Canada Juniors game is. Maybe if I learned Punjabi....
And that's the way the English-speaking Ball bounces.
6 comments:
I would be so impressed if we were sending hockey to Pakistan and then translating the games. But importing Pakistani's and then translating the game for them here, doesn't sound very Canadian to me. If we export the game to other countries in a similar fashion then that is more of a 'win' for our culture. (real conservative)
Very good, I agree fully!
Anyone remember the old Wayne and Shuster skit Hockey Night in the Himalayas? "The score is 30 to nothing"! "Have no fear we switch ends at the end of the period"!
Joe -- you and I are probably the only people reading this that remember Wayne and Shuster.
Do you remember the skit where they are doing some kind of a hockey interview, and one of them picks up what looks like a puck, and says, "And this is a puck". And the other guy says, "what do you think it is -- a chocolate-covered marshmallow?" And the other guy says, "no, of course not, it's a puck". And then the other guy picks it up and says, "no, it's a chocolate covered marshmallow", and proceeds to eat it.
They did this gag a couple of times.
Yeah the good old days when the only channel we were able to pick up was the booster signal from a CBC affiliate. The the excitement when a CTV affiliate put in a booster we could pick up. Then Dad banished the TV!!!! Oh well at least we wore out the old 78s.
God Bless and Happy New Year Richard.
Post a Comment