Dear Editor:
The on-ice officials refereeing the letters arena at this paper need to do a better job policing head-shots and attempts to injure. Responding to leftwinger Tony Eberts' recent "cheap shot," i.e. calling the government "cheap," local Centre Ice forward Hector Bremner took his number and responded with a clean, hard, fact-filled, reason-fuelled body check, knocking Eberts' flimsy case to the ice. Eberts reacted with an ugly stick-swinging rampage, flailing wildly at the more sportsmanlike Bremner, who wisely skated away from the taunting.
When enforcers like Eberts are allowed in the game, you have to question the officiating and the coaching. Politics is a contact sport, and no one wants to take hitting out of the game. It's part of what makes the political debate so popular. What fans don't want is coaches sending head-hunting goons into the fray and officials turning a blind eye. It's bad for the game.
The real loser when the head-shots start flying is the facts. The truth about the performance of any government is in the numbers. It's about putting points on the board, shots on goal, save percentage, job creation, financial management, economic growth, debt-ratios. As brilliantly articulated in the baseball film Moneyball, the intensely boring performance metrics, although clearly the key to success, are usually outshined by the less significant popularity contests.
In B.C., everyone's key focus now is rightly the economy, and the economy is all about the numbers. If there's hard hitting to be done, let's light up the calculators, not pump up the sucker punches.
The truth is, the team on the ice right now is putting up some impressive numbers. That's bound to be popular, eventually.
David H. Brett, New Westminster
