I wouldn’t want to diminish the great hockey being played in the Stanley Cup final. I even like the way it pits Edmonton and Raleigh, since sites of power are shifting everywhere, and this is an acknowledgment. The World Cup, though, puts Stanley in perspective, because it really is a world cup. I mean that not just in the sense that the entire world competes, so you can get Togo playing Japan or either playing Costa Rica.

I mean in the sense that the world now is more about the world than it used to be, back when a few underpopulated nations in Europe and North America tended to dominate it and speak on everyone’s behalf. Now, largely due to the rise of China and India as economic, political and cultural power centres, the bulk of the world seems more involved in its own affairs.

The U.S. may claim publicly to be preoccupied with its war on terror, but we know that, in private, it’s China (and India as counterweight) that obsesses it. Institutions such as the UN or World Cup are not as merely symbolic as they once were.

It’s nice to be in Toronto for the World Cup. It mildly mitigates our chronic pain over the long absence of the Stanley version. On College Street, the bistros, even the non-sportif ones, have installed big screens.

On the patio at the Café Diplomatico, there’s a set over each table, like the airlines that lower a TV above your seat. The patio tends to take on the ethnicities of whoever is playing. It’s like a wordless rebuke to those snarly outbursts last week that “it may be time to rethink Canadian multiculturalism” — after the arrests of the “Toronto 17.” Why? What’s the link between that and the people who gathered to watch Tunisia tie Saudi Arabia 2-2 this week?

CBC Newsworld ran a documentary on Argentina’s great scorer, Maradona. He looked like an animated soccer ball. The ball didn’t stick to his foot, it melded with his personality. He was embattled and outspoken.

When world soccer leaders named Brazil’s Pele as the greatest player ever, Pele thanked God. When Maradona got virtually the same honour at the same time, he thanked Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and all the soccer players in the world, thus implying a theoretical basis for his socialist sympathies. Not many athletes have that kind of global reach. Among Americans, only Muhammad Ali comes to mind. Michael Jordan is widely known, but not for anything he said; mainly for the shoes he endorses, or his number.

But, mostly, Maradona was riveting for the joy of his game. That, not politics, is what tied him to the sporting masses. He had the sheer vitality of kids and other humans at play. When Maradona lengthened a run a few more dekes before scoring, it wasn’t to humiliate the keeper, as middle-aged writers or coaches tend to opine. It was to extend the play, just one more goal, just another kick, it isn’t dark yet, etc. That can be rare in pro sports. Think of poor Eric Lindros, who has always looked as dour as an Ingmar Bergman character under the burden of his vast talent.

In Toronto, we’ve been blessed with a touch of that joy in Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin, an actual, not virtual, Swede. Each time he scores, his smile radiates to the ends of the arena. He lifts his face to the heavens. Even his helmet seems to emit beams. It’s so unlike the fist-pumping routine. He spreads his arms wide, inviting teammates to celebrate, too. On every goal.

This week, it makes me think of Richard Bradshaw, of the Canadian Opera Company, who finally opened his opera house in Toronto. It’s been hell making it happen, yet he clearly did it not just for the joy of opera or music, but of being out there in the world, sipping from the cup of the world, you might say.

We are acquaintances, we meet about once a year. He calls us the last Marxists; I have no idea what he calls his comrades who give him $20-million for his building, but I know it’s sincere and we all believe him. He sent me the finest rebuttal to a column I’ve ever received. I’d said bodies like the opera shouldn’t get public money because they have rich donors. He wrote, “Oh dear. I think it’s time for one of our lunches.” He’s the Mats Sundin of opera.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.