General posts, including essays and discussions.
At the end of January the Calgary Flames became the first Canadian team to offer commentary in a language other than English or French. Flames TV Punjabi will be hosted by none other than Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) – Punjabi Edition’s Harnarayan Singh. Punjabi is the third most spoken language in Canada and, despite…
By Alvin Ma At a recent conference, I presented on Asians in my university’s kinesiology program and drew upon the “Proud Fathers” commercial from Tim Hortons (Mark Norman has also written about this commercial on this blog). Tim Hortons initially ran that ad during the 2006 Winter Olympics and followed up with another multicultural ad…
Roundtables are an occasional feature on Hockey in Society. Roundtables will present brief commentaries from Hockey in Society contributors on pressing or timely issues within hockey and its culture, with the aim of presenting a diverse range of critical viewpoints on the topic under discussion. The Olympic Games are, despite the Olympic Movement’s laughable claims…
By Sunil Agnihotri TSN put together an excellent three-part series looking into sexual orientation in professional sports. Hosted by Aaron Ward, a 14-year veteran in professional hockey, the series interviews players to shed light on gay athletes and how professional sports are evolving. From TSN: In this special TSN report, Ward talks to other athletes,…
Another cheap shot. Another player leaving the ice on a stretcher. Another apology. Boys will be boys, I guess. So when will we hold boys and men to a higher standard of masculinity (or at least a different one)? Or are we really okay with the status quo? Tonight, Shawn Thornton threw an unwitting Brooks…
Welcome to Hockey in Society’s Weekly Links post. This feature highlights articles or blog entries that are related to Hockey in Society’s areas of interest and that may be of interest to the site’s readers. Please check out some of the great writing that is happening in the hockey media and blogosphere! Rogers Communications…
By Sunil Agnihotri Professional sports team owners and management strive to draw and retain fans by assembling a quality product in order to sell tickets and merchandise. There are numerous factors that influence how well a professional sports team draws fans: on-ice success, local economy, local sports market, demographics, to name a few. It’s crucial…
The annual conference for the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), a scholarly association for sport sociologists, will take place this week in Quebec City, QC. As usual, the program is packed with interesting presentations on a wide range of critical issues in sport; also as usual (e.g. the 2011 conference), there…
Despite the fact that this blog is a site for critical reflection on the sport of hockey, every now and again it’s nice to raise the hammer and appreciate what is great about the sport. This is one of those opportunities. Roland Barthes (1915-1980), the famed French literary theorist and philosopher, took part in…
By Alvin Ma “It is one of the most disgusting, brutal parts of NHL hockey…it seems absurd, so why doesn’t it change?” By now, many people have seen or heard of the head injury that George Parros of the Montreal Canadians sustained in a fight on the opening night of the National Hockey League season.…
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