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So the National Hockey League is back at work, almost four months late. If fans had any self-respect, they’d stay away from the rinks in droves and watch hockey from the living room couch. But of course if they did that, the owners would just shut down again. So our loyalty to the game is taken for granted, but if we want the game we love, we have to pay the price.
You couldn’t help but wonder as the lockout dragged needlessly on and on (surely they could have come to an almost immediate agreement if they’d locked themselves in Gretzky’s pub for a weekend), what would have happened if a bunch of fans had started a rival league and refused to go back? What if they paid the players salaries that actually make sense? What if they charged ticket prices that meant the average Canadian kid could actually go to a game? The vast majority of youngsters who wear Maple Leaf or Canadien sweaters at their neighbourhood rink will never get inside the Air Canada Centre in their entire lives.
But of course the recent hockey labour dispute is hardly unique in punishing a third party. Many fights between employers and employees end up hurting the consumer more than they do the combatants, and Uxbridge Secondary student Maggie Anderson’s story on page 8 provides an excellent example of that. As she relates, the musical theatre class at USS had enough challenges when it couldn’t use the school’s usual performance venues for this month’s semester-ending production of Bye Bye Birdie. But the teachers and students resolved the problem by coming to an agreement with St. Paul’s Church in Leaskdale to stage the show there.
Now that plan has been squelched because of the spat between teachers and the provincial government. Because of the teachers’ work-to-rule reaction to Bill 115, the students in the class, who have been working on the show since last summer, have been forbidden to stage the show outside the school, or even outside of regular school hours. In other words, they can’t present their work for the community in which they live.
Keep in mind that the cast of Bye Bye Birdie are not members of an extra-curricular club. The actors, as well as the musicians in the pit band, are participating in the show as part of a regular USS credited course. Performing arts are a part of the curriculum for which Uxbridge Secondary has a deservedly strong reputation. It makes no sense at all that even if they’re confined to the school, the students shouldn’t be able to perform for their family, friends and neighbours. We own the school, the teachers don’t. If someone needs to supervise the evening performances, let parents do it, or even, heaven forbid, let the administration actually step up to the plate and facilitate a meaningful interaction between the school and the community.
What’s happening to the students of the USS musical theatre class not only prevents the most important part of the theatre experience - public performance - it teaches a whole lot of really bad lessons about how the world works. The Durham School Board should give all the students, and their parents, their money back.
July 14, 2011
