Canada's Game: Hockey and Identity

Contributors include Julian Ammirante (Laurentian University at Georgian), Jason Blake (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Robert Dennis (Queen's University), Jamie Dopp (University of Victoria), Russell Field (University of Manitoba), Greg Gillespie (Brock University), Richard Harrison (Mount Royal College), Craig Hyatt (Brock University), Brian Kennedy (Pasadena City College), Karen E.H. Skinazi (University of Alberta), and Julie Stevens (Brock University). From the book: The Giller Prize-winning author, David Adams Richards, tells a humorous anecdote from his days as a writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick - Fredericton. It was in 1984, on the day after Team Canada had defeated the hated Soviet national team 3 to 2 in overtime and, a committed hockey fan, he was dying to chat with someone, anyone, about the great victory the night before. The first person he encountered was a young English professor, a good but perhaps pretentious scholar who had once been overheard saying that she could not see how anyone could live without reading Henry James. Despite her erudition, like Richards she was from small-town New Brunswick, and because of this, he thought, she must be a hockey fan. "Did you see the game last night?" No, she replied, "we don't have a television '¦ don't approve of it," but continued on saying that her husband had been eager to find out the result that morning on the radio. "He's heartbroken," she said. "We were going for the Russians." Richards' face displayed his bewilderment at her treasonous statement. "Well we both hate Gretzky, you see." Her accent now turned slightly British "'¦ he's just such a Canadian." She smiled. He paused, uncomfortably, and then asked her: "You hate greatness '¦ or just Canadian greatness?"