Hockey Sticks and Heartstrings: The Men’s Gold Medal Hockey Game and the Affective Legacy of the 2010 Olympic Games

When Sidney Crosby scored the game winning goal for Canada in the gold medal men’s hockey match at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, the crowd went wild. The post-game atmosphere was described by media outlets as “electric” and “joyous.” Is there a more precise way to define the feelings that circulated during and after the game? In this essay, I examine one of the intangible impacts of The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games: its affective legacy. Using theatre and performance studies, I analyze how the gold medal men’s hockey game was positioned to become a defining moment of the Olympics. Drawing on the work of American theatre studies scholar Jill Dolan, I argue that a combination of ideal conditions and careful orchestrations resulted in what Dolan calls a “utopian performative,” a feeling of fleeting, but intense inter-subjectivity experienced during a performance. As a result, the men’s gold medal match became an important temporal, cultural, and affective reference point for Vancouverites.