{"id":1028,"date":"2010-05-19T09:48:45","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T13:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2010-05-19T09:53:07","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T13:53:07","slug":"readings-on-canada%e2%80%99s-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=1028","title":{"rendered":"Readings on Canada\u2019s Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><em>The Walrus<\/em> feature article this month is a review of the current state of hockey in Canada. David MacFarlane and Michael Adams take a look at how Americans are hijacking our game. It\u2019s an up-dated review of an old lament as MacFarlane travels to arenas in Nashville, Florida and Phoenix.\u00a0<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.walrusmagazine.com\/articles\/2010.06-sports-hockeyland\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\">http:\/\/www.walrusmagazine.com\/articles\/2010.06-sports-hockeyland<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">What makes this article noteworthy is the public opinion polling that accompanied the authors\u2019 reflections. <em>Three-quarters of Canadians (76%) believe that hockey is a key part of what it means to be Canadian. <\/em>Now, having said that, here are a few findings that challenge our view that hockey signifies Canada\u2019s heart and soul.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">One in two Canadians (54%) say hockey should remain Canada\u2019s national sport.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Only 36% of Canadians say hockey is their favourite sport (football comes second at 10%). <\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Only 21% of Canadians say they love hockey. 31% of Canadian men say they love it, while only 12% of women say they love the sport. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">Only 38% of Canadians think fighting is an acceptable part of hockey. 42% of all Canadians like what Don Cherry has to say about the game \u2013 and this admiration rises to 60% amongst huge hockey fans. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">On the same subject, there is a recently published book from McGill-Queen\u2019s Universities Press called <em>Canada\u2019s game \u2013 Hockey and Identity<\/em>. This 2009 collection of learned essays focuses on the game of hockey and its impact on the psyche of Canadians.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">In one essay, Bruce Kidd\u2019s and John Macfarlane\u2019s 1972 work <em>\u201cThe Death of Hockey\u201d<\/em> was quoted: <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026 not very many Canadians play the game we call our national sport. Despite the soaring teenage registration of the CAHA there are just two kinds of hockey in this country: the hockey we play for a brief few years during adolescence, and the hockey a few hundred professionals provide as a televised spectacle. Left out are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who ski and curl, play golf and tennis, who love hockey as much they did when they were kids but who have been relegated to the sidelinbes as spectators. We play hockey to win, we play hockey to make money, but we have forgotten what it is to play hockey for fun. That, more than anything else, signals the death of hockey. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\">BTW &#8211; the subtitle for <em>\u201cThe Death of Hockey\u201d<\/em> is<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span><em>\u201cHockey no longer a dream of the Canadian Everyman\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;\"><em><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 The Walrus feature article this month is a review of the current state of hockey in Canada. David MacFarlane and Michael Adams take a look at how Americans are hijacking our game. It\u2019s an up-dated review of an old lament as MacFarlane travels to arenas in Nashville, Florida and Phoenix.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 http:\/\/www.walrusmagazine.com\/articles\/2010.06-sports-hockeyland \u00a0&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[35,53],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}