Cool as a Cucumber
Blue collar Canadian males aren't easily intimidated. They've played hockey.
In the above Beth Baisch video, a Freedom Convoy protester emerges from a portable toilet directly into a large group of police officers. Cool as a cucumber, he quips “It’s all good. Feeling better, guys.”
He then calmly retrieves his snow shovel and his flag.
The thing about blue collar Canadian males, is that they grew up playing hockey - a highly physical sport in which players are routinely slammed against arena boards by members of the opposing team.
Under certain circumstances, matters devolve into fisticuffs. When tempers run high in the professional-level National Hockey League (NHL), gloves are discarded and punches get thrown. Sometimes blood is involved. Sometimes teeth get knocked out.
In other words, many working class guys know what it’s like to be physically assaulted. They therefore know that injuries are survivable and usually temporary. This helps explains the nonchalance of Ben, the crane operator. A few weeks after being pepper sprayed at close range, he was laughing it off rather than adopting a ‘poor me’ stance.
(Many moons ago, I heard about research that concluded the biggest difference between women who successfully fought off rapists versus those who didn’t resist physically was that the first group had played contact sports and were therefore unafraid of a few bruises.)
