It is funny reading this morning in the Canadian papers more going on about Zidane’s headbutt and the need to have it explained by scientists…the science of the headbutt looks like this:
“Just because somebody acts aggressively doesn’t always mean that they’ve lost it,” Glassman said. “There’s also often a question of choice.”
“Anger, he said, “can be learned behaviour to get what you want.” But anger that does result in losing it is almost always evoked by a perceived violation, said Lorne Korman, director of the anger management clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Canada’s sport, hockey, is entirely based on retaliation and violence. Canada’s back up game, CFL, is pretty much based on retaliation and violence. The reason soccer does not do well in North America is the false perception that there is not enough retaliation and violence.
Soccer is filled with retaliation and violence, headbutts behind the play, slide tackles that are way too hard, cleated shins, clattered skulls during a well fought for header. North Americans (softies for the most part) just do not understand how that can go along with the grace and hearty athleticism of fitba. Heck, I snapped a guy’s leg once and finished another game with three teammates in the hospital, one of whom made the New England Journal of Medicine for his badly bruised pancreas. Good, then, to see Zizou getting the best player award because he was – and no namby pamby new PC NASCARian milk-drinker misunderstanding of the importance of a head butt should have gotten in the way of that.
Sometimes a place is a good place not because it is surprising, rare or new but because it represents a sort of joint well. For my money, the Lucky Inn in Pembroke was a classic Canadian-Chinese buffet. Similarly, Pizza Rodini of the Truro of my youth was the best greasy circle of za.
