Query about US belief

[E Wayles Browne]

At Cornell U. hockey is one of the major sports: students line up and wait
all night to get tickets to hockey games. Wayne Gretzky is mentioned
frequently in the student newspaper, and there was a lengthy story when
the allegations about his wife came out. Has it all been cleared up? Did
she do something behind his back?
-- 
Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.

tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu

> I would agree with this assessment completely, but I would add one
> caveat: while
> it's true that most people in the US who don't follow hockey can only name
> one
> professional player, my bet is that the one player they can name is Wayne
> Gretzky. I don't follow hockey at all, and yet I have not only heard of
> Gretzky
> for years, but have heard about him as a major sports legend. And I have
> also
> heard about the gambling incident and have seen it written about in the
> papers
> and on-line. Probably the incident is receiving less press than in Canada
> (I
> guess/assume?), but he is still a well-known sports icon here.
>
> Regards,
> ss
>
> Quoting "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>:
>
>> Natalie Kononenko wrote:
>>
>>> This is not exactly a SEELANGS question, but I thought I would ask.
>>>
>>> I am teaching a course on Ukrainian folk belief and one of the topics
>>> we cover is folk healers (babky) and witches (vid'my).  We talk about
>>> the process by which folk healers can so easily be accussed of
>>> witchcraft.  To give them a contemporary example, I used Wayne
>>> Gretzky who is an icon of goodness and virtue (as well as athletic
>>> prowess) here in Edmonton, Canada, and the accusations of his
>>> involvement in the sports gambling scandal.  The students asked me to
>>> what extent people were interested in Gretzky in the States.  I said
>>> I would ask.
>>
>> To my deep chagrin, hockey is a minor sport down here, and most
>> people who don't follow it can only name one player. In hockey towns
>> like Philadelphia or Detroit, and in the northern parts of the
>> country generally, you'll get more understanding and name
>> recognition, but most of the population would be hard-pressed to
>> distinguish the red line from the blue line, much less name the
>> players.
>>
>> --
>> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>> --
>> Paul B. Gallagher

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