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Jan 28, 2015 | Jon Thompson | 1512 views
Canadian Newcomer (s)
How Much Do Canadians Love Hockey?

When airlines announce the start of boarding, passengers nearly always respond the same way: They eagerly line up to claim their seats. But on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 28, 2010 the passengers for Air Canada Flight 112 didn't move. They refused to get on the plane.

The reason? They were watching a hockey game.

It wasn't just any hockey game, to be sure. Some 22 million Canadians, two-thirds of the country, watched Canada's Olympic team beat the U.S. for the gold medal by a score of 3-2 in the final event of the Winter Games in Vancouver. Interest in the game was so intense that updates were flashed during breaks in the Canadian Opera Company's performance of "Otello."

"A lot of Canadians love opera," says Vanessa Somarriba, spokeswoman for the Toronto-based company. "But they also love hockey."

Love hockey? The word doesn't do the feeling justice. But then, again, perhaps no word can. Because the fact is that Canadians eat, live and breathe hockey. For some Canadians, it's what defines them. They say it's what binds this country together.

"Hockey is our game," says Saul Miller, a sports psychologist who grew up in Montreal. "We invented it. We're good at it. And I think people really want something to take pride in."

Home Game

Such passion begins early. Children in Canada begin skating soon after learning to walk. Wendel Clark, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the early 1990s, says his father encouraged him to traipse around the family's Saskatchewan home in skates at the age of 2. Mr. Clark did the same with his son.  "You always wore skates to get used to standing on blades," he says. "That's how we grow up here."

It's a nation that also mourns together when a hero of the sport passes on. More than 100,000 fans filed past the casket of the late Maurice "the Rocket" Richard as he lay in state at the home rink of his longtime team, the Montreal Canadiens. The Quebec hockey legend, who died in 2000 at the age of 78, played with the Canadiens his entire National Hockey League career.

Hockey brings out the best in Canadians, says Dan Diamond, publisher of the NHL's Official Guide and Record Book. "The game reflects a flattering image of ourselves as courageous, committed to one another, skilled, independent and creative," he says. "To play the game well is to be noble."

Hockey also gives normally staid, stoic and polite Canadians license to be aggressive. Fighting is not only acceptable, it's expected under certain circumstances, such as when an opposing team's player crashes into the goalie.

Unwritten rules exist on how to behave when injured, too. Injured players are expected to leave the ice under their own power if at all possible, no matter how badly they are hurt.

"It's the code. Everybody knows it," Mr. Diamond says.

Dr. Miller, the sports psychologist, says he has worked with hockey teams throughout Europe and, invariably, the expatriate Canadians on those teams are counted on to provide a sense of purpose. "They're like prize commodities, not for their skill necessarily, as much for their work ethic, their determination and grit," he says.

Tough Talk

There are Canadians who question this ethos of toughness, as well as the pressure to excel at hockey from a young age. Dave Bidini, a musician and author, has written several books on hockey that include his own experiences with the game, which he plays for fun. He says there was so much pressure on him when he was young, it nearly turned him off the sport. "My dad is a great guy, but he used to be up there in the stands…yelling things like, 'two hands on the stick,' in the middle of the game," he says.

As for the fights and the stoic mentality, Mr. Bidini says, "Having to fight the toughest guy, or getting your face caved in by a stick and having to pick your teeth up from the ice and not show any kind of pain, that's just not healthy."

Whatever one's opinion of its values, hockey's popularity in Canada still seems to be growing (if that's even possible), especially among girls. According to Hockey Canada, the country's governing body for the sport, more than 540,000 children played the sport in Canada in 2012, 87,000 of them girls. That's up from about 500,000, including 43,000 girls, a decade earlier.

For Brendan Shanahan, who retired from the NHL last year after a stellar 21-year career, Canada's passion for hockey is also the glue that keeps many families together, at a time when so many forces conspire to tear homes apart. Mr. Shanahan grew up with four brothers and working parents. "Everyone was always on the go," he says. But on Saturday nights, they always found time to watch Hockey Night In Canada.

As the family gathered around the television for the weekly game, he recalls, his father would smoke a pipe and pet the family dog. His mother sometimes ordered pizza. Mr. Shanahan himself felt particularly happy, he says, because on Hockey Night he was allowed to stay up late.

"You remember the games less and the family ritual more," he says. And that's a unifying role, he says, that hockey still plays.

Much has changed since Mr. Shanahan grew up in the 1970s. A growing array of electronic gadgets and games compete for the hearts and minds of children and adults alike.

Yet hockey continues to thrive in Canada, a source of pride and pleasure.

"It's just in our life cycle," says Kevin Lowe, president of hockey operations for the Edmonton Oilers. "You come out of your mother's womb, you take a breath, and it's really as simple as that. You're inundated with the game."

By  Wall Street Journal