Studying at a university in North America means the possility to participate in sports events much more often, than what I am used to from my home university. The sports event I attended was the basketball game between the UFV and the team from Regina. That night was Baker House appreciation night, which meant that as many residents as possible should attend the game and show their support for the Cascades team. The night started early with everyone dressing up in the school's colors (green, yikes!) and painting their faces or simply, put as much green color on you as possible.
I must honestly admit that I am not a big fan of basketball and was not looking much forward to watching the game. However, the game was really exciting and it was a good feeling to have a team to cheer for together with everyone else. Considering the special place sports occupy at a North American university it was interesting to me to see what people attended the game and what that told me about the community.
Quite frankly I do believe that this night's audience offered a different picture than it usually does. Since many Baker House students were attending and most of them from the international floor, the audience, when it comes to different ethnicities, was very varied thus I believe creating a skewed representation of the usual audience present at those games. Even though Abbotsford's community is very diverse, even for such a small town, this diversity was not represented at the game. Mostly caucasian people watched the game, with only one or two exceptions of an african american or a south asian. The reason for this I really do not know, perhaps this indicates that watching college sport games is still more important in the caucasian community than in those that share a different sense of community, those that can consider themselves as part of a diaspora for example. However, maybe this lackof interest in watching college basketball games had a more trivial reason, for example of the game not being interesting enough or maybe that college basketball in general does not have a big fan base in Canada.
Nonetheless, attending this event still told me something of the larger cultural picture at UFV. It showed me that showing pride in your university and cheering on the teams as a group is very important here and can have a unifying effect. In general the events organized by the UFV and by Baker House especially always give one a certain sense of belonging. And even though this might not directly relate to a diaspora group I think it shows a communities ability to deal with many different culture and ethnicities, when being able to organize events that interest all students, whether they are from Canada or are here as an international student. Going to these events as a group gives us as students the possibility to feel in a certain sense as a unity despite of all the diversity.
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