Hockey Protests Breakout Around The Globe

Canadian protestors have taken to the streets around the world today after shocking cartoons depicting the Prophet Wayne Gretzky losing in the 2006 Olympic Men’s Hockey tournament were published yesterday in Swedish newspapers. The Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, ran several cartoons under the headline "Vëkloom Spägjrd Grëtzky Näglu." It’s sports editor, Mättiäs Flëgelsnöögän, claims to have done so to highlight, “the inability of people to criticize the religion of Hockey without fear of violent repercussion.” “It is ridiculous,” Flëgelsnöögän noted, “that in a free and democratic society people cannot speak about or discuss someone other than team Canada winning at Olympic Hockey without being bodychecked, face-washed or given a Gordie Howe elbow. It’s sports terrorism veiled under the disguise of religious tolerance. These people are fanatics.”

Reaction from Canadians was gritty, tough, full of passion and pride. Don Cherry, High Priest of the Temple of Hockey Night in Canada, called the cartoons, “vile, typical-European-socialist hatred” and demanded an immediate apology from King Carl XVI of Sweden. The monarch, who admitted that the cartoons were “an insensitive act hurtful to millions of peaceful Canadians” nevertheless refused to offer an apology on behalf of the newspaper. Effigies of Björn Borg are being lit on fire by protestors in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal, and the Swedish Embassy in Ottawa is continually being pelted with Göteborgskex cookies.


In Canada, images not showing the Prophet Gretzky victoriously holding a Stanley Cup or celebrating an international play win are strictly forbidden. “The guy gives 110% all the time, eh?,” said Deaner Spitowski, outside of the Tim Horton’s church in Edmonton. “Why would any hoser talk that way about the Great One?” Terry Puddester, one of the thousands of people protesting outside the Ikea store in Gander, Newfoundland, added, “that pussy Peter Forsberg never scored 215 points in a season.”



Other Hockey leaders in Canada have called for a boycott of Swedish goods, including furniture, meatballs, ABBA, Ace of Base and Cardigan records, Volvo and SAAB vehicles, Ingmar Bergman movies and any product related to golfer Annika Sörenstam. The Canadian newspaper The Hockey News is even running its own anti-Börje Salming cartoon contest, stating that, “if they [Swedes] believe in freedom of speech, then they won’t have any problems seeing images of Salming having intercourse with Harold Ballard and Wendel Clark.”

Hockey is practiced by over 30 million Canadians world-wide.

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