Nobody Is Better At Cyberbullying Teenagers Than Canadians During The World Juniors
Minas Panagiotakis. Getty Images.Stereotypes are usually harmful because you place judgement on an entire group of people based upon the actions of just a few. Now usually when you think about stereotypes, you're typically going to be thinking about negative characteristics and qualities. But the stereotype for Canadians is that they're nice, polite people. And just like stereotypes for any group of people, this one sure as shit doesn't paint an accurate picture of Canadians.
Because boy oh boy do these folks love to absolutely eviscerate teenagers on social media when they don't play hockey well at the World Juniors. We laugh and joke about Canadians constantly saying "sorrey", but it doesn't seem like anyone is "sorrey" for focusing the entire hatred of the nation onto the shoulders of Easton Cowan.
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It's honestly impressive. Every year that the Canadian junior team fails to blow everybody out of the water, the entire nation finds one kid on the team to attack.
This year, it's Easton Cowan. And what sucks the most for Easton Cowan is that he's in a particularly brutal spot. Not only did Team Canada lose to Latvia in a shootout. Not only did Team Canada get dismantled by the United States on New Years Eve. But Easton Cowan is also a draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs. So pretty much every other Canadian outside of Toronto already had a reason to hate the poor kid to begin with.
It's the perfect storm for faceless keyboard warriors to be spamming a 19-year-old kid with as much hate as possible. But this is just the Canadian way. Over the past 15 tournaments, Canada has won the gold medal 5 times. Which means in 10 other years, the country has turned a teenager into a scapegoat and completely crushed the kid for the team not performing. You might think that college football kids get it bad sometimes, but Canadians literally have the whole country go and bully a kid online if Team Canada isn't playing well at the World Juniors. It's a cyberbullying clinic year after year, and this year is no different. If anything, this year might be a record breaking year for cyberbullying in Canada. Especially if that quarterfinal matchup against the Czechs goes sideways tonight.