My Country Is Hockey: How Hockey Explains Canadian Culture, History, Politics, Heroes, French-English Rivalry and Who We Are As Canadians by Brian Kennedy (review)

My Country Is Hockey: How Hockey Explains Canadian Culture, History, Politics, Heroes, French-English Rivalry and Who We Are as Canadians by Brian Kennedy is an eclectic but lucid treatment of Canada’s relationship with ice hockey, exploring the historical, social, and cultural significance of the game to the nation. Kennedy teaches English at Pasadena City College in California and works as a hockey journalist covering the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). A prolific author, Kennedy’s other books on hockey include Hockey Dream (2009) and Growing Up Hockey (2007). Written in the treatise-like style, used so magnificently by Joyce Carol Oates in her On Boxing, Kennedy uses ten chapters, an introduction, and an afterword to take the reader through the plethora of topics suggested in his detailed subtitle, roaming the realm of ice, skates, and sticks, taking the reader on a guided tour of the ponds, small-town rinks, and palatial NHL arenas that host Canada’s winter sport.

As might be expected in such an all-encompassing work, Kennedy begins by adding his own voice to the debate over hockey’s origins, discussing potential Canadian, American, and European birthplaces of the game. In chapter two, Kennedy explores the connections between hockey and Canadian politics, seamlessly entwining hockey with discussions of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and political figures such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and late National Democratic Party leader Jack Layton. In chapter three, aptly entitled “Rhythms That Make Sense,” Kennedy focuses on the flow of hockey, noting its potential for creativity and action as opposed to the stop-and-go oriented sports of baseball and football, favored in America. Chapters four and five both delve into national heroes, the former looking at individuals like Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, and Wayne Gretzky, while the latter discusses the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and U.S.S.R., illustrating Team Canada’s role as heroes for a nation based on freedom and capitalist enterprise, over the perceived villainy of the restrictive, communist regime. Fittingly, given the triumph of the capitalist-based Team Canada of 1972 in the previous chapter, Kennedy uses chapter six to discuss “icons” of the game, focusing predominantly on the Stanley Cup and the expansion of the league into American markets, while also touching on the production of hockey cards, player sticker-books, and other objects many fans buy and hold dear. In chapter seven, the author discusses the values of hockey—channeling aggression as well as teamwork and creativity—and the erosion of these values by overprotective parents, trophies for winners and losers alike, city by-laws against road hockey, and such topics as specialized training that limits creativity. In chapter eight, Kennedy examines the “niceness” of the game, in terms of goalie masks (and their ability to wear them), players’ salaries, and labor disputes. Kennedy addresses the place of violence in the game in chapter nine, weighing in on the fighting and concussion debates. Lastly, in chapter ten, Kennedy conceptualizes the “Country Called ‘Hockey’” (p. 288), defining the sport as a “country without borders, defined more by the spirit of its inhabitants than by its geographical location” (p. 315).

By using a more treatise-like approach, Kennedy provides a hockey book boasting a Faulkner-like, stream of consciousness writing style, giving his work an authentic, readable commentary on hockey past, present, and future. Kennedy’s remarkably eclectic selection of materials, ranging from Aristotle to Shakespeare, to Stephen Brunt and Andrew Holman, is a refreshing departure from the usual, solely journalistic, focus of much of the genre’s titles. Likewise, Kennedy’s use of examples from the World Hockey Association, Pacific Coast Hockey League, American Hockey League, Canadian Hockey League, and various minor...