Hockey has had both an enduring but also a complicated relationship with ideas about what it means to be ‘Canadian’. While not every Canadian skates, or plays the game, or even cares about the game, the sport itself occupies a serous place in the Canadian cultural psyche. While the game has often been seen as something to unify Canadians, or to express ‘Canadianness’, it has also been exposed for very serious flaws in its culture, its infrastructure, and its dubious place as a game of character and inspiration for Canadian youth. The game of hockey, as we understand it now, has undergone dramatic challenges and changes since its first official appearance on ice in Montreal in the 1870s. This episode seeks to understand some of the key developments in the game that we now recognize today. From the rules to the rink size, to professionalization, commercialization, internationalization, to the broadening of the hockey cultural mosaic. From its amateur roots to a game that is international in its appeal, incorporating men and women from different socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups, and one that continues to evolve alongside modern value systems while evoking serious discussion on its relevance to modern Canadians.
Book recommendation: Canada’s Game: Hockey and Identity by Andrew C. Holman published McGill-Queen’s Press in 2009.
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S9E18 - Race and Racing: The Jerome Family
S9E17 - Lost in the Crowd: Acadians and the First World War
S9E16 - Sex in Canada: Getting Down in the Great White North
S9E15 - Alcohol in early North America
S9E13 - Of Fugitives and Orators: The Characters Behind the RCMP’s Complicated History - a special Canadian Time Machine episode
S9E12 - The Canadian Masters of the Air
S9E11 - Canada, Maritime Power, and Africa
S9E10 The Beginning of the End: The 1758 Siege of Louisbourg
S9E9 - A Ballistic Decision: Canadian Intelligence Services and the Cancellation of the Avro Arrow
Holiday Reboot - The Upper Canadian Militia during the War of 1812
Holiday Reboot - S2E1 The Strangest Tale of WW2: The Battle for Castle Itter
S9E8 Confederates in Canada and the Canadian Connection to Lincoln's Assassination
S9E7 Big Men Fear Me - The Life and Times of George McCullagh
S9E6 The SS in Canada Part Two
S9E5 - The Partition of Palestine
S9E4 The SS in Canada Part One
S9E3 The Bombing of Air India Flight 182
S9E2 United the Salish! The Battle of Maple Bay
S9E1 Henri Le Caron - The Victorian Super Spy
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