The Meaning of Puck: How Hockey Explains Modern Canada

In Bruce Dowbiggin’s book, The Meaning of Puck: How Hockey Explains Modern Canada, Bruce captures the Canadian social psyche-using hockey as a bridge to the larger picture of modern Canada. He develops viewpoints from a number of different occurrences in the last century that occur in hockey and as a result affect Canadian politics. There are four main areas he focuses on when comparing: violence in the game, the culture of Quebec, popularity of hockey, and how the decisions players and influencers of the game make (on and off the ice) have a direct influence on Canada.

In the first chapter Bruce addresses the major issues that line Canadian politics. He states, “…The challenges that lie ahead…what are those challenges? Oh you know…regionalism, Quebec, the environment, Native issues, gender equality, America, economic sustainability.” (Dowbiggin, 2008) He then goes on to further explain how all these issues that Canada has been facing in the last century can also be explained through hockey. Through the understanding of the game we can go on to better understand the social conflicts and moral dilemmas of our country. Before examining the effect that Hockey has on modern Canada, Dowbiggin first observes the worlds view of the game - none, might I add, is overly positive. Dowbiggin is stumped over why the Americans are so hostile to the game. Pulitzer prize winner, Robert Ford, called it, “an uninteresting sport played by Canadians”. “Hockey on radio sounds like one long mistake”,said former NBA coach Gene Shue. Dowbiggin’s response comes in defense of a very militarized America, who at the drop of a hat would go to war to defend their country. He says:

It’s a brave game played by young men and women

seemingly impervious to pain and oblivious to the

danger of skating on razor-sharp, razor-thin blades

at thirty-five km an hour amid pucks that whizz

by your ear at 130 km. (Dowbiggin, 2008)

So why aren’t more Americans adopting to...