Hood Wars Semi-Final: New Edinburgh vs Gatineau

Gatineau, as Danielle pointed out in the quarterfinals, isn’t just a neighbourhood. It’s a city. Of course Gatineau has “a lot more to offer” than New Edinburgh: Gatineau’s population of nearly 300,000 is about 100 times that of New Edinburgh, spread over an area that’s 300 times the size. It’s not a neighbourhood, and while there are lovely commercial, cultural, and recreational centres within the city, none of them are spaced densely enough for me to visit one of their neighbourhoods on a regular basis.

New Edinburgh is the right amount of stuff. Like I said last week, it has excellent diversity in its retail. There is such a thing as too many baby shops, coffee houses and Shoppers Drug Mart. It has a handful of public spaces that encourage all walks of life to come out and live, work, and play.

Speaking of all walks of life, Gatineau is exclusive. 21% don’t speak French as their first language; that’s one in five people. Yet, more than Montreal, more than Quebec City, I find myself being lambasted by les Outaouais when my I speak Parisian-French, rather than Quebecois. Je voudrais améliorer mon français, mais il est très difficile car les gens me répondre en anglais. Just saying.

At the end of the day, New Edinburgh is the better of the two neighbourhoods because it’s a neighbourhood, accessible, welcoming, charming, and growing. In the short time that I’ve lived here, I’ve found myself among kind people with good ideas and the capacity to create change in their community, which is precisely what a neighbourhood is about.

I heard you all crying last week that “the big bad Gatineau has beaten the poor little Almonte, it’s not fair, it’s a whole city (by the way, it’s 200k people, not 1.23M!)”. Now I see you lusting for revenge for your Ottabro.

But the truth is that you actually like Gatineau!  Gatineau is the fresh breeze you were waiting for. It is not your average town, but a mix of everything you need to maintain your healthy, action packed life.

Hull is a good example of how Gatineau makes its ancestors proud. Compare Hull to its British father, Hull City -also known as the armpit of Britain – and you can only be in awe of how much nicer our Hull is.

What about New Edinburgh vs Edinburgh? Edinburgh is a lovely city, one of the prettiest in the UK, the cultural capital of Scotland and the home of it’s parliament. Point Hull.

You could always tell me that New Edinburgh is not so bad, since, according to wikipedia, it is the home of our Prime Minister and Governor General.

To that I would simply answer “How exciting!” If 24 Sussex impresses you, I’ll let you go pet some kittens while I go watch an exciting hockey game. Because when it comes to sports, Gatineau is the place to be! Don’t believe me? Ask my friend Wayne Gretzky! When Mr. “I’m the best hockey player of all time” decided to buy a junior hockey team, it was the Olympique de Hull (now de Gatineau) that he bought (I’m not making that up)!

Have you heard anything about Lionel Messi being interested in buying the New Edinburgh Wildcats? No? Well, that’s because he’s not!

Wayne recognizes quality and intensity when he sees it. He could have bought a team in New York, but prefered Gatineau. He recognised himself in the place, in the people. He wanted to be different and found the perfect place for it. Because it’s by being different that we become THE Great One.