General posts, including essays and discussions.
Brian Burke, the General Manager for the Toronto Maple Leafs, has never been one to shy away from the media spotlight or to hide his emotions. Nor has Burke made any secret about his view that a good NHL team requires a solid dose of toughness on its roster, famously declaring upon taking the Maple…
By Matt Ventresca “It’s a holiday tradition!” says TSN’s Bob McKenzie in this year’s edition of the network’s marketing campaign for the World Junior Hockey Championship (WJHC). This year’s advertisement features a number of former WJHC competitors from Eric Lindros to Theo Fleury to Darcy Tucker to Andrew Ladd exclaiming “I was there in [insert…
On February 24, 2012, actor Sean William Scott (you may know him from silver screen classics such as American Pie and The Dukes of Hazard) will be staring in a hockey movie titled, Goon. The IMDB synopsis reads: Labelled an outcast by his brainy family, a bouncer overcomes long odds to lead a team of…
Future Reading is an occasional feature that highlights new or upcoming publications on sport, and particularly hockey, that relate to Hockey in Society’s content and/or that may be of interest to its readers. Adam Proteau’s new book, Fighting the Good Fight: Why On-Ice Violence Is Killing Hockey, is incredibly timely. In particular, one can’t help…
By E. Martin Nolan Like most people I stood up, rising off my feet a bit, when the circling, diffuse hive of the game would suddenly stop and, somewhere behind the play, the focus would grow static, with the crowd collectively gasping before collectively cheering as the brawlers circled each other and closed in. I…
If you have not yet read John Branch’s New York Times series on former NHL enforcer Derek Boogaard, it should immediately jump to the top of your reading list. Boogaard passed away this past summer from an accidental overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. In a compelling and upsetting three-part series, Branch offers a detailed…
I was checking out the NHL’s social responsibility programs with the intention of writing about the NHL Fights Cancer initiative but a different program caught my attention – Hockey is for Everyone. November 2011 was the inaugural Come Play Hockey month for the program, which was “designed to increase participation in the sport of ice…
Future Reading is an occasional feature that highlights new or upcoming publications on sport, and particularly hockey, that relate to Hockey in Society’s content and/or that may be of interest to its readers. Well this is exciting, at least if you’re a nerd like me: a new book on sport and violence by sociologist Kevin…
By Matt Ventresca “Hey man, nice moustache.” Throughout the month of November, this male-to-male greeting appears more common than any other simple platitude, salutation or secret handshake. It has become so ubiquitous that it almost needs no introduction: for the past month, countless men across the globe have grown moustaches to “raise vital funds and…
Cross-posted on The Rabbit Hole. This is less a commentary and more a show of support for an intriguing article that I found in this month’s edition of Sportsnet magazine titled “World-Class rec league: Because the NHL’s support never materialized, the world’s best female players are professional in name only”. For those of you who…
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