So Everyone Really Does Ice Fish in Canada

It's no secret that every Canadian lives in an igloo, eats whale blubber, wears flanel shirts and tuques even in the summer, pours maple syrup on everything they eat, including whale blubber, and spends most of their days ice fishing while singing Canada's official anthem "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback.

Regardless though, our Canadian friends in cities like Vancoooover and Toronto try to convince us otherwise; that they live in cities no different than big cities in America, that they don't spend their lunch breaks hand augering a hole and sitting on a bucket waiting for the walleye to bite.

But as one of their much-loved countrywomen says, "isn't it ironic, don't you think," that an article in the Winnepeg Sun about the poker raids there said the following:

"Although it is technically illegal to play unlicensed poker in Canada, it's also technically illegal to fail to guard a hole you make in the ice"

See! There's absolute proof. They have laws about this kind of thing. And once again stereotypes are stereotypes because they're absolutely true.

So anyway, the article is an interesting take on the raids as it points out how the players that were nabbed were essentially collateral damage in an effort to rid the city of its growing number of underground poker games. As Paul Turenne points out, the slippery slope here is that the more a city turns a blind eye to illegal poker rooms (i.e. ones that are taking a rake) the more likely organized crime will want to get in on the action, and with that comes loan sharking, money laundering, knee whacking, coke dealing, bocce playing and spaghetti and meatball eating.

What Turenne doesn't say though is that good, decent people from all walks of life, blue collar to blue blood, want to be able to play poker, whether it be in there homes or down the street at an establishment, and rather than local governments expending considerable resources trying to bust up illegal games because they fear mob involvement, they should be legalizing games, making it safe for people to play and raising much-needed revenues rather than wasting them.

Read the article here.

After the jump, a video of a cute Canadian girl going ice fishing outside her house during a blizzard in June, yeh that's right, freakin' JUNE, then heading back home to roast some seal with a little bear grease. And you think we make this stuff up.

Canadian ice fishing video

Comments

[Billy Bob]

Your ignorance is not as astounding as the world once thought. People all around the world now know Americans to be ignorant and self-centered. Not to mention any wars the Americans STARTED, never get won. WW1 and WW2 are wars america JOINED, and later tried to claim responsibility for along with a sense that you actually accomplisg anything. Keep it up New Rome, the rest of us will pick you apart when you get too fat and bloated.