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Canada Standard
4 days ago
- Sport
- Canada Standard
Hockey night in Belfast: How Canada's sport could be bridging longtime sectarian divides
In its simplest form, the protracted tensions in Northern Ireland have at their foundation two separate sectarian identities deeply divided over how, and by whom, they are governed - Protestant/Unionist populations wishing to maintain British rule and Catholic/Nationalists desiring a united Ireland. The 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement brought an end to armed hostilities that devastated cities and towns through years of urban guerilla conflict. Yet divisions remain sewn into the everyday lives and patterns of the Northern Irish people - 90 per cent of students attend segregated schools and there are few friendships spanning the sectarian divide. One setting sits identifiably apart from these entrenched divisions: the ice hockey arena. Now in their 25th season, the Belfast Giants, Ireland's only professional hockey team, impressively draws an average of 6,480 spectators to their games. They've also built a large and enthusiastic fan base known as the "Teal Army." As a spectator sport with limited opportunity to play the game competitively and no significant history on either side of the conflict, the hockey arena has emerged as something of a neutral ground where fans from different backgrounds come together side-by-side. The arena is a place where symbols of division, so common across Northern Ireland via flags, murals and graffiti, are not allowed. The lack of a historical association with one side of the conflict, the fact that the sport is played predominantly by men from outside Northern Ireland - mostly from North America and Scandinavia - and a name and logo rooted in the shared regional lore of mythical giant Finn McCool has allowed the team to forge its own path post-peace agreement. In 2015, after years of planning, the Belfast Giants hosted the inaugural Friendship Four hockey tournament. Held over the American Thanksgiving weekend, the tournament has since become an annual event that sees four Division I hockey teams from American universities come to Belfast for a two-day experience that includes intercultural exchange, educational visits to local schools and a hockey tournament. Since the tournament began, it has hosted teams from the New England and Boston areas as a means of fostering stronger ties between the sister cities of Belfast and Boston. In 2024, the Friendship Four tournament notably included a school with a long association with Ireland, the University of Notre Dame. As a prominent American Catholic university with a team name - the Fighting Irish - that is directly connected to the island's divisive history, the team's inclusion in the Friendship Four had the potential to tarnish the neutrality of the event. As a researcher who has engaged significantly with supporters of the Belfast Giants, and as an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, this tournament drew me to Belfast. Before the 2024 tournament in November, the Notre Dame Hockey account posted guidelines on X for their supporters in Belfast, including an image of what to wear, and what not to wear, around the city. It noted: "Just a reminder to avoid our Irish symbolism, that may be deemed offensive to some, while out around town." The post was deleted a few hours later, and an apology was issued acknowledging the tournament was meant to build bridges, not stoke division. Nonetheless, the original post drew significant attention and criticism. Belfast media and British news outlets picked up the story about the Notre Dame post. Many of the comments on social media about the story were situated in ethno-sectarian views or pointed fingers of blame. The outrage that greeted the Notre Dame X post demonstrates the tension and complexity of identity and symbols in Northern Ireland. But it thankfully wasn't replicated in the Belfast hockey arena because the groundwork of social capital among hockey fans in the city has been built over the last 25 years. On Nov. 29, 2024, the Notre Dame team took to the ice to play against Harvard without any extra fanfare. The afternoon game was filled with school groups carrying homemade signs and cheering for the teams whose players had visited their schools earlier in the week with overt hopes of seeing themselves on the jumbotrons. The game could have been in Saskatoon given the lack of any sectarian tensions. In an age of rising polarization and lack of human connection, the hockey arena in Belfast is worthy of attention. Hallmarks of post-conflict reconstruction include the development of a shared understanding of the truth about past events and directly engaging with contested acts and issues. Neither effort has been particularly well-executed in Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, as people wait for a more fulsome peace in the region, they have managed to live peacefully side by side in places like the Belfast hockey arena. As peace and conflict research continues its attempts to understand how those in conflict-affected communities navigate their everyday lives, the importance of non-traditional, non-partisan activities that can bridge divides should not be overlooked.
Canada Standard
4 days ago
- Sport
- Canada Standard
Hockey night in Belfast? How Canada's sport could be bridging longtime sectarian divides
In its simplest form, the protracted tensions in Northern Ireland have at their foundation two separate sectarian identities deeply divided over how, and by whom, they are governed - Protestant/Unionist populations wishing to maintain British rule and Catholic/Nationalists desiring a united Ireland. The 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement brought an end to armed hostilities that devastated cities and towns through years of urban guerilla conflict. Yet divisions remain sewn into the everyday lives and patterns of the Northern Irish people - 90 per cent of students attend segregated schools and there are few friendships spanning the sectarian divide. One setting sits identifiably apart from these entrenched divisions: the ice hockey arena. Now in their 25th season, the Belfast Giants, Ireland's only professional hockey team, impressively draws an average of 6,480 spectators to their games. They've also built a large and enthusiastic fan base known as the "Teal Army." As a spectator sport with limited opportunity to play the game competitively and no significant history on either side of the conflict, the hockey arena has emerged as something of a neutral ground where fans from different backgrounds come together side-by-side. The arena is a place where symbols of division, so common across Northern Ireland via flags, murals and graffiti, are not allowed. The lack of a historical association with one side of the conflict, the fact that the sport is played predominantly by men from outside Northern Ireland - mostly from North America and Scandinavia - and a name and logo rooted in the shared regional lore of mythical giant Finn McCool has allowed the team to forge its own path post-peace agreement. In 2015, after years of planning, the Belfast Giants hosted the inaugural Friendship Four hockey tournament. Held over the American Thanksgiving weekend, the tournament has since become an annual event that sees four Division I hockey teams from American universities come to Belfast for a two-day experience that includes intercultural exchange, educational visits to local schools and a hockey tournament. Since the tournament began, it has hosted teams from the New England and Boston areas as a means of fostering stronger ties between the sister cities of Belfast and Boston. In 2024, the Friendship Four tournament notably included a school with a long association with Ireland, the University of Notre Dame. As a prominent American Catholic university with a team name - the Fighting Irish - that is directly connected to the island's divisive history, the team's inclusion in the Friendship Four had the potential to tarnish the neutrality of the event. As a researcher who has engaged significantly with supporters of the Belfast Giants, and as an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, this tournament drew me to Belfast. Before the 2024 tournament in November, the Notre Dame Hockey account posted guidelines on X for their supporters in Belfast, including an image of what to wear, and what not to wear, around the city. It noted: "Just a reminder to avoid our Irish symbolism, that may be deemed offensive to some, while out around town." The post was deleted a few hours later, and an apology was issued acknowledging the tournament was meant to build bridges, not stoke division. Nonetheless, the original post drew significant attention and criticism. Belfast media and British news outlets picked up the story about the Notre Dame post. Many of the comments on social media about the story were situated in ethno-sectarian views or pointed fingers of blame. The outrage that greeted the Notre Dame X post demonstrates the tension and complexity of identity and symbols in Northern Ireland. But it thankfully wasn't replicated in the Belfast hockey arena because the groundwork of social capital among hockey fans in the city has been built over the last 25 years. On Nov. 29, 2024, the Notre Dame team took to the ice to play against Harvard without any extra fanfare. The afternoon game was filled with school groups carrying homemade signs and cheering for the teams whose players had visited their schools earlier in the week with overt hopes of seeing themselves on the jumbotrons. The game could have been in Saskatoon given the lack of any sectarian tensions. In an age of rising polarization and lack of human connection, the hockey arena in Belfast is worthy of attention. Hallmarks of post-conflict reconstruction include the development of a shared understanding of the truth about past events and directly engaging with contested acts and issues. Neither effort has been particularly well-executed in Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, as people wait for a more fulsome peace in the region, they have managed to live peacefully side by side in places like the Belfast hockey arena. As peace and conflict research continues its attempts to understand how those in conflict-affected communities navigate their everyday lives, the importance of non-traditional, non-partisan activities that can bridge divides should not be overlooked.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
From blight to beautiful: Gary releases plan to revitalize downtown
GARY, Ind. (WGN) — Once a bustling Midwest steal town, officials in Gary, Ind., are promising to make a comeback and redevelop the city to reverse the trend of population decline, abandoned buildings and blight that is too much a part of its 2025 landscape. Leaders in the Northwest Indiana city of fewer than 70,000 teamed up with the University of Notre Dame to create a master plan of a vibrant, attractive and walkable downtown district. 'This plan builds on our administration's long standing to build community investment and shape a long term commitment to downtown for the next generation,' Gary Mayor Eddie Melton told WGN on Tuesday. The vision, outlined in a report released Tuesday, is the culmination of a partnership made last year with the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture's Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. The partnership included a series of community listening sessions and a weeklong public urban planning session. Gary, Indiana secures project win for Lake County Convention Center A major part of the process was reestablishing a historic preservation board to identify the most important structures to keep in the city while demolishing and clearing some properties that have been in decline for decades. 'There were things in the drawing that didn't resonate, and people said, 'No you didn't get that right,' so the next day we cleaned it up and then said, 'Did we get this right?' And then we drew again,' explained Marianne Cusato, the director of the Notre Dame program. Gary's Broadway corridor will be the cornerstone of the urban renewal, with the goal to make it a bustling mixed-use district with shops, art galleries and entertainment venues catering to residents and visitors alike. The next step is to adjust current zoning codes to align with the the 10-year plan. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
University of Notre Dame finishes blueprint for downtown Gary with preservation plans, zoning changes
The city of Gary now has a master plan for its downtown, so the time is now for developers to commit to its new vision. Mayor Eddie Melton, along with city dignitaries and representatives from the University of Notre Dame's Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative, announced Tuesday morning that the school has finished the plan it started last August. Now, he and Redevelopment Director Christopher Harris are asking the city's largest stakeholders – the residents who contributed ideas to the plan – to advocate to everyone they know the benefits of the new plan. The city has all the fundamentals any business would covet, said Jackie Shropshire, senior vice president of industrial for Chicago-based commercial real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle. And the timing to get into Gary couldn't be better. 'Post-pandemic, people are looking for walkable cities,' Shropshire, a Gary native, said, adding that pressure in Chicago's housing market gives Gary a competitive edge. 'Gary has regional integration as well; the South Shore Line is something companies desire.' Marianne Cusato, Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative Director for Notre Dame and lead for the Gary plan, said she noticed a master plan when she arrived at City Hall for her first meeting with the administration. When she asked what it was, someone told her it was a master plan from 15 years ago. What propels this plan ahead of the myriad other plans the city has commissioned is the community involvement, she said. At least 100 people came out to the first charette, or stakeholder meeting, back in August to make their thoughts known. 'We pinned up all the input after that first night, and when we came back with our first draft, we asked, 'Did we understand what we heard correctly?' because we know there's no reason for the public to trust us,' Cusato said. 'People said we didn't get it right, so we went back and kept going over it until we got it right.' What the city has now is a holistic blueprint that takes into account preserving the buildings that can be preserved, changing zoning codes immediately in the downtown area to get the momentum started and planning new construction on both sides of Broadway to 'heal' the metaphorical wounds that blight has brought to Gary. '(Planners) currently only destroy cities and build out to the suburbs; we're reinventing the culture of the city,' Cusato said. 'Gary has a much greater platform, but its issues are no different than those of Kalamazoo or Elkhart,' where Notre Dame is also working. For its part, the city also has been working on setting up a different atmosphere for the downtown, including working with the Indiana Department of Transportation to steer truck traffic off 4th and 5th Avenues, Melton said. Whether that will remain something the city can keep doing will depend on whether the state starts turning all its roads into toll roads, the mayor conceded, but for now, it's an important piece of the project. The city will also start accepting Requests for Information on the redevelopment of the Genesis Center as well as the 500 block of Broadway and 120 to 138 E. 5th Avenue corridor, Harris added. 'We're being intentional about (the Genesis Center), so the RFIs will tell us how do we partner (with a developer), do we refurbish it and who has the resources to do anything,' Harris said. There is also a set of Notre Dame-provided zoning codes for the immediate downtown area that the Gary Plan Commission has already approved unanimously, Harris said; they're included in the new master plan that the Gary Common Council is anticipated to take up by the end of July. George Rogge, who lives in Gary's Miller section and sits on the city's Redevelopment Commission, has seen just about all the plans for reinvigorating the city, but he's never been hopeful. He is now. 'The city's been talking about this for the last 50 years. I remember talking about it under Hatcher, and then again under Mayor Thomas Barnes,' he said. 'But sitting in that first meeting, there were 24 to 30 young people (on the Notre Dame team), and they were focused on all of this. We've never had that. 'I never thought I'd be pleased about a master plan, but I am.' Those interested in reading the final plan can log on to
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Bridge of sacrifice: Dedication honors Libby veteran's service during Vietnam War
May 26—Sitting under the pavilion at Libby's Riverfront Park, Patty Rambo shuffles through dozens of letters written in support of her late brother, Staff Sgt. Arthur J. Rambo. One recalls "the brief honor of meeting Art Rambo," a man described as having "intellect and [a] dynamic personality." Memories of living on "The Rambo Tracts" in Libby and moments spent on the baseball field when Art was a kid are part of the letters. It's reminiscent of the legacy and impact he had on people, Patty said. In the early hours of Thanksgiving Day in 1969, Rambo's squadron command post suddenly came under an intense mortar attack in Vietnam. He was fatally injured in an attempt to protect his squadron. He was 24. This year, 56 years after he was killed and 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, the bridge spanning the Kootenai River on Montana 37 has officially been named the Staff Sergeant Arthur J Rambo Memorial Bridge. A dedication ceremony was held on Sunday. "I will not let a Memorial Day or Veterans Day pass without telling people what that means," Patty said while sitting in the park with the bridge behind her. Art grew up on a ranch south of Libby with his parents, older sister Kathleen and younger sister and brother Patty and Dan. He graduated from Libby High School in 1963 and attended Carroll College in Helena, earning a mathematics degree in 1967. He married his wife, Helen, in 1967 and earned an engineering degree at the University of Notre Dame in 1968. Shortly after, their first daughter Kerry was born. He was drafted into the U.S. Army later that year. After 11 months of service, through basic and advanced training and artillery combat leadership courses, Art was promoted to staff sergeant, an accomplishment Patty said was rare. "Only 1% of the 1% rise through the ranks as quickly as Artie did," she said. He was sent to Vietnam in August of 1969 as a section chief of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, also known as the legendary Blackhorse Regiment. Just three months later and three weeks shy of his 25th birthday, Art was killed in combat. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and the Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation. Surviving him were his wife and daughters Kerry and Amy, who were under two years old. The effort to memorialize Rambo's sacrifice began with the Libby Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1548, said Sen. Mike Cuffe, the Lincoln County legislator who carried Senate Bill 59 that called for the bridge to be named in Rambo's honor. On Jan. 16, Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law, the first of the session. "It's touching, it's a combination of being very deeply touching and exciting," Cuffe said. "And that is very much evident in the letters, emails and notes that came from other people in Libby, many of whom knew Art Rambo, many who knew about him, and then from folks who didn't know him." It was a testament to a community coming together, he said. "There were not very many things to smile about this session, and to start the session with this bill ... it brought a bright moment to the first few days," he said. But it is more than a feel-good bill, Patty said. "This is my brother," she said, explaining her drive to make sure the dedication was done with respect and dignity. Growing up, Patty recalled the house being full of music. From her parents on the piano and the guitar to Art singing "Little Joe the Wrangler" alongside them, life with her siblings was pleasant until 1969. After Art died, there was no more music in the house, Patty said. It's representative of the heartbreak that many families experienced during the war, she reflected. Former Montana governor Marc Racicot, a Libby native and friend of Art's in school, remembered the frenzy associated with young men leaving and returning from the war. After he heard the news of Art's death, Racicot went to mass and wrote a poem on a piece of school paper. "What he leaves us is a piece of himself, a family graced with his presence, a world awed by his touch, and a friend adorned with his friendship," he wrote. "These things shall never die. And because they are him, he lives forever within us." While the dedication of the bridge remembers Art, Racicot said, it is also a tribute to all those impacted by the Vietnam War. Patty echoed the sentiment, stating that freedom is never free. "And now, I shall live as he lived," Racicot wrote. "What greater tribute could we pay him?" Reporter Kate Heston may be reached at 758-4459 or kheston@ Patty Rambo, younger sister to Staff Sergeant Arthur J Rambo, stands in front of the bridge newly dedicated to her brother's memorial. (Kate Heston/Daily Inter Lake) Photos of Staff Sergeant Arthur J Rambo, a Libby native who was killed during the Vietnam War. (Kate Heston/Daily Inter Lake) Patty Rambo, younger sister to Staff Sergeant Arthur J Rambo, stands in front of the bridge newly dedicated to her brother's memorial. (Kate Heston/Daily Inter Lake) Photos of Staff Sergeant Arthur J Rambo, a Libby native who was killed during the Vietnam War. (Kate Heston/Daily Inter Lake)
