Last night I was walking by a bar that was nearly overflowing with people. They were all watching Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Many of them were wearing Canucks jerseys and cheering, providing an atmosphere quite different from the night before, when the bar was practically empty as I watched the NBA finals.
It eventually clicked that many of the fans were probably from the Vancouver area and were passengers on one of the many Vancouver-to-Alaska cruises that come to Skagway each day. However, they wouldn't have had to go too far to find local Canucks fans.
Skagway borders the top corner of British Columbia, and after crossing the border one only needs to drive about an hour to reach Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. That's where we print our newspaper, which means every two weeks we take a road trip to Canada.
Whitehorse, as I learned, is firmly in Canucks territory. Vancouver T-shirts and flags were everywhere. This amazed me, as Whitehorse is approximately 1,500 miles away from Vancouver. Sure, the Yukon sits on top of British Columbia, but it's not exactly a North Carolina-rooting-for-the-Atlanta-Braves kind of thing.
That distance is like Boston to Miami. Similarly, if the minor league hockey-playing Anchorage Aces aren't enough, Alaskans turn to Seattle teams. So, while I have to go online to see how the Phillies are doing, I can just check the front page of the Juneau Empire for all the latest news on the Mariners.
Maybe someday Alaska and the Yukon will get franchises of their own. Until then, their home teams are just a short plane ride away.
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