A Hotly Contested Affair

Book excerpt: "This volume traces the historical arc of Canada’s national winter game from its “founding” in Montreal in the mid-1870s into the early twenty-first century. The evidence presented in this book reveals how deeply embedded hockey was among the peoples of post-Confederation Canada. Composed of more than 150 edited and annotated documents, the volume is organized into chapters based on ten central themes. "An Evolutionary Game" explores hockey’s incremental growth. "A National Banner" demonstrates how English and French Canadians have used hockey to imagine themselves. "An Arena for Commerce" delineates hockey’s long relationship with moneymaking. "An Essentially Violent Game" highlights the sport’s reputation for roughness. "A National Problem" captures the discourse around hockey as an enemy to education, a source of labour exploitation, and a vehicle for Americanization. "A Question of Order, A Question of Character" examines the belief that hockey could generate respectable civic behaviour. "Hockey Talk" explores the technology and drama of hockey narration, and the concern in Quebec about hockey as a portal for anglicization. Hockey’s “whiteness” is examined in "Race and Social Order" along with the challenges that Indigenous, Black and Asian players and teams made to that hegemony. "A Gendered Endeavour" pieces together the quest among women and girls to play on integrated and segregated teams, and to control their sport. Finally, "An International Calling Card" illuminates the mercurial history of “Team Canada,” from the unmatched international power to one among many"--