A Canadian Saturday Night : Hockey and the Culture of a Country

Whether we’re playing or watching the game, reading about it in the newspaper, listening to sports talk radio, see- ing a stack of hockey cards at a garage sale, or driving past a road hockey game on a quiet street, the game is every bit as much of our cultural fabric as the loonie, Parliament Hill, the Laurentians, the toque, poutine, Peggy’s Cove, Smarties, or the letter zed. [...] In big cities, many Canadians enjoy the opera and the symphony, the theatre and the movies, and, in this country, a trip to a hockey game fits in nicely with those cultural interests and intellectual pursuits. [...] It is a game that includes the mentally strong and the emotionally weak, the sportsman and the cheap-shot artist, the hero and the villain, the brave man and the coward. [...] The puck is the only black object in the major sports (because it is played on a white surface), and the only Few objects look thing that changes shape after contact with it is the goalie’s glove, the as harmless while defenceman’s shin, or the forward’s dental plate. [...] Notice also the elaborate decoration, the bunting along the hardly looks ready balcony, the flags from the ceiling, the banners spanning the interior.