General posts, including essays and discussions.
By Matt Ventresca I think the powers that be at TSN are going to start wondering about me. It may seem to some readers that I can’t make up my mind whether to praise the Canadian sports broadcasting powerhouse or criticise them. In my last post about the World Junior Hockey Championship, I applauded the…
By E. Martin Nolan Of course, you see past the positive vibes. Hockey Weekend in America is a sales pitch put on by the NHL that relies on a positive notion of the game itself and on the game’s growing influence in America. The sale comes first, but it relies on the positive vibes being…
By E. Martin Nolan Backhand Shelf’s Daniel Wagner thinks it’s weird that Ralph Nader entered the public debate over fighting in hockey. He also thinks Nader’s open letter to Gary Bettman exposed Nader as a hockey know-nothing. He’s wrong on both accounts. On the latter point, Wagner employs an unspoken double standard to dismiss Nader’s…
By E. Martin Nolan A month ago, when it became clear that The Winter Classic would be played in Ann Arbor and not Detroit, I argued that the NHL was wrong to deny Detroit the opportunity to host the game, all for the cash incentives offered by the use of Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.…
“The Corporate Construction of Hockey” is an occasional feature on Hockey in Society that examines and critiques the ways in which corporations construct the social meaning of hockey through their marketing efforts. If you have suggestions for future features please contact us. Tim Hortons has, over a period of decades, established itself as a quintessentially…
Along with all of the All-Star weekend hooplah came the most recent installment of the NHL’s Hockey is for Everyone campaign. Canadian Governor General, David Johnson, with Gary Bettman and former Boston Bruin (and first black NHL’er), Willie O’Ree were on hand at Rideau Hall to announce the introduction of the H.E.R.O.S program in Ottawa.…
It is an annual tradition that various US-based championship teams get invited by the President to visit the White House to be honoured for their accomplishments. I am not certain how far back this practice dates, but at least can confirm that it was already an established tradition as early as 1985. Usually these visits…
I was fortunate enough to attend the annual Vancouver Canucks Dice and Ice fundraiser dinner this past week. It is an event that I have wanted to attend since I was a child. The whole team is in attendance for a casino and auction gala and the players work all the casino tables. You can…
By E. Martin Nolan There was downtime before the meeting. I asked, “Leafs for real this year?” His response was tentative, but cynical as he was, you could clearly sense the relief he felt for even being able to seriously answer this question. Someone else chimed in, “you’re from Toronto?” My co-worker affirmed this third…
Over the weekend Torontoist published an excellent article by Kevin Plummer that provides an overview of a 1928 hockey tour featuring two teams made up of Ojibway and Cree First Nations players. The article is well-researched and historically/socially contextualized, and I highly suggest giving it a read. While I do not want to simply rehash…
Hockey in Society / Hockey dans la société 