About 50 people decided to spend a beautiful, sunny afternoon in the basement of the Croatian Club in Sudbury.
Some are wearing national team jerseys and caps. There is cold beer and hot sausages on the tables. And there is a lot of spirited discussion, in English and Croatian, about the soccer game on the big screen at the front of the room.
This scene plays out in towns and cities across Canada during the men's World Cup of soccer, which sets off a sort of month-long national multicultural festival.
"I think that sport allows us to have these sort of multiple identities and have them at different times and general society accepts it from us," says Ann Pegoraro, the director of the Institute for Sports Marketing at Laurentian University.
"I think that allows you to adopt that identity that you might suppress the rest of the year to blend in in Canada."
She is part of a research project working with a social media analytics firm to track the sentiments of Canadian soccer fans during the tournament.
Obed Boateng is watching as many matches as he can given his work schedule.
"I need to strike a deal with my wife so I can watch on the weekend," says Boateng, who has lived in Sudbury for about four years.
With his native Ghana out of this year's tournament, he says he is rooting for Brazil and some individual players he follows in the English Premier League.
"The fever is not like it is in Africa," Boateng says of watching the World Cup in Canada. "This is pretty big for us. It's like the Stanley Cup."
He plays for the new Afro-Heritage team in the Sudbury Regional Competitive Soccer League, which also has teams representing Greece, Italy and Serbia.
"When you look at soccer, a lot of the life and energy in the sport comes from that great cultural diversity," says league vice-president Milton Lessis.
Lessis grew up on the Greek island of Corfu, but with Greece out of this year's tournament, he's rooting for nearby Croatia.
He says if Canada ever fields a team again in the World Cup, he would be "100 per cent" behind them.
That is a decision many soccer fans might have to make in 2026, when Canada co-hosts the World Cup with Mexico and the United States and could automatically get to field a team.
Pegoraro expects many will cheer for both Canada and the team they've rooted for in tournaments past.
But her colleague, Laurentian University sports sociologist Barbara Ravel, says that could be difficult for some fans.
She is originally from France, but has lived in Canada for 20 years. She remembers feeling torn during women's world cup matches between her two teams.
"Rather than feeling that at least one of my teams will win, I felt that one of my teams lost," Ravel says.
Comments
To encourage thoughtful and respectful conversations, first and last names will appear with each submission to CBC/Radio-Canada's online communities (except in children and youth-oriented communities). Pseudonyms will no longer be permitted.
By submitting a comment, you accept that CBC has the right to reproduce and publish that comment in whole or in part, in any manner CBC chooses. Please note that CBC does not endorse the opinions expressed in comments. Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time.