The Endgame

Newsletter #123 - We The North

Toronto, December 14, 2025

We The North

I’d never watched live professional basketball and had no idea what to expect, when a generous neighbour gave us tickets to a Toronto Raptors game.

As Cynnie and I set off for the arena on a cold and dark December night, for a moment I wished we were staying home instead, sitting quietly by the fire, watching a BBC police procedural on television, dozing off as the hour advanced.

Hamlet told Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth... Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5) No matter how old you are, and how full a life you’ve had, there will be worlds you know nothing about. There will be countries you’ve never visited, languages you’ve never learnt, books you’ve never read, dreams you’ve never dreamt, skills you’ve never mastered, bodies of knowledge that are a mystery to you. (They say that Universal Knowledge has not been possible since the Renaissance, and that the last person to know everything was Gottfried Leibniz who died in 1716.)

Professional basketball was not in the dreams of my philosophy. I half-expected to find the Raptors game uninteresting and forgettable. But it was thrilling. The intensity and speed of play was overwhelming. The athleticism, style and skill of the players was extraordinary. The complexity of the game—spatial, temporal, strategic, tactical, physical, psychological—was supremely evident. Cynnie and I were stunned by the spectacle.

The Great Georgian, Raptor #54, Sandro Mamukelashvili

As with all games, there is more to the game than the game. What’s happening off the basketball court—on the sidewalks as crowds flood into the arena, in the halls, in the stands at time-outs and half-time—is as important as what’s happening on the court during the 48 minutes of play. The dancing girls, the chanting and cheering of joyful and exuberant fans, mothers shaking their howling babies in the air in an attempt to catch the attention of the TV cameras, random high-fiving, T-shirts being shot into the stands from cannons, fireworks, the overwhelming and unrelenting noise, people wandering about wearing odd costumes—a full-body T-Rex inflatable suit, a black and red tunic and cape, full medieval knight armor, a giant chicken suit...

Half-time at a Raptors game

And then there’s the community behind it all. My daughter Gabrielle has been a big baseball fan for a long time. I’ve gone to a lot of Blue Jays games with her. We’ve even been on the road together, following the team—Boston, New York, Cleveland. It’s a father/daughter thing. Her devotion to the game, and to the Blue Jays in particular, has always been a bit of a surprise to me. When I ask her about it, she says, “Dad, I’m a member of the Blue Jays community. It’s about community.”

What about the Raptors Community? Who are those joyful and exuberant fans cheering the team on? I asked my friend Charlie about this. Charlie, something of a subterranean sociologist, is a wise man who knows many things. He wrote to me about the idea that’s been behind the Raptors since the team’s beginning in 1995: “My favorite part about ‘We The North’ campaign of the era? It was more often We The (non-white) North. We The brown, black, Asian, African, North. We The North who don’t know real cold and snow, and the real ‘far’ North, but love the place and space called Canada, which has been so welcoming. And love hoops, a sport that—unlike the ‘white’ northern sport of hockey—can be played for cheap, and everywhere, by ‘us’ –the ‘new’ Northern people. Here to play. Here to stay.”

I decided it’s not too late for me to add a dream or two to my philosophy. There’s room for the Raptors. I’m in.

We The North!

*****

Some reader comments on Endgame #122 (“Even Homer Nods”)

From the writer Mark Abley: “A beautiful essay, full of wisdom—although I have to say that your image of Homer decorating his mudbrick Aegean home is even more unlikely that you seem to think. It would be more accurate to speak of Homers decorating their mudbrick homes, because the idea of Homer as a blind genius dreaming up his epics near the wine-dark sea has been largely discredited. The Iliad and the Odyssey were almost certainly built up over time, with different bards and story-tellers adding their own metaphors, anecdotes and images to the developing oral tradition. One or two of them may indeed have nodded off.”

Gabrielle Domingues writes: “I am a recovering perfectionist, and being a new student of Tai Chi has been particularly humbling. When I got frustrated with a new form, my sensei zen-ly said to me: ‘The best way to learn is by muddling through.’ Instead, I think I’m going to embrace what they teach in clown school: When you make a mistake, just proudly proclaim ‘Ta-dah!’”

An intriguing literary reference from Julius Grey: “Speaking of Voltaire: ‘Si vous voulez que j’aime encore, rendez-moi l’âge de mes amours.’” (“If you wish me to love again, give me back the age of my loves.”)

Karin Turkington writes: “Just what I needed to read as I procrastinate endlessly to finish a writing project I started in 2016. It means too much to me to set it aside permanently, but the voices in my head don’t cease to criticize my efforts.”

From excellent food writer Naomi Duguid: “I visualise this relationship between perfection and anxiety as a thing to avoid. My efforts go to working at things and finding pleasure in that process. The product is less interesting and less important than the process. And anxiety—about being late, or about that mark on my skin, or about some irritating tech mess—is a dreadful waste of energy. I read murder mysteries etc. to distract myself from anxious thinking.” (Follow Naomi’s Substack, “Home and Elsewhere.”)

A sad note from the writer Sher Singh: “I knew an extraordinarily gifted novelist three decades ago in Toronto, H. S. Bhabra. I was impressed by his two published novels which had also received good reviews. He wowed us weekly with his column in The Globe & Mail and his show on TVOntario. He strove fiercely to write his perfect magnum opus and, disappointed in his own failure to achieve his goal, became a grump and a pain to everyone around him. Ultimately, he couldn’t forgive himself for his inability to achieve perfection and jumped off the Danforth bridge ... and unwittingly contributed to the towering anti-suicide barrier that blemishes it today.”

The last word goes to the enigmatic Martin Levin: “A rosy-fingered column, indeed, Philip, though much more evening than dawn.”

*****

Looking for a cheery last-minute holiday gift for someone you love? What about this?

All Remaining Passengers is available from Amazon and other online book sellers in most countries, and from some independent bookstores in Canada (coast-to-coast) including Ben McNally Books and Book City (Yonge & St. Clair branch) in Toronto, Munro’s Books in Victoria, B.C. (where, for some reason, it’s selling like warm cakes), Russell Books in Victoria, and Salt-Water Ballad Books in Port Medway, Nova Scotia.