Hockey the Universal, Individual Hockey: Essay

While hockey may have masculine connotations for the single sportsman watching a game, a father watching the same game may see the sport as a way to bring the family together, while a mother next to him in the stands may marvel at its sociological implications as she watches her daughter bond with her father while discussing the intricacies of the game.

While viewing hockey as an art form allows Canadians to draw a variety of meanings from the game, the game's implications on Canadian society are hard to deny. A community affair, hockey has had the power to bind Canadians together, bringing communities and families into stands or next to television screens across the country to enjoy a good game. While some may view the action of the game to be "hypermasculine," the consequences are anything but, but are instead a common ground for community interaction -- a rather feminine model for community organization. Gruneau and Whitson call hockey "a form of backyard play" and "a community symbol" (27). Much like its American cousin, baseball, hockey's ability to bring people together is one of the main reasons that it rose in fame and popularity in Canada. Although many Canadians balked at what they saw as American exploitation of the game, this commercialization was only made possible through the degree to which hockey could insight community involvement (Gruneau and Whitson 27). Because mass or popular culture, a category of which hockey is a part, was a means through which normal, working class people bonded, telling their own histories and stories over time, hockey can be seen as an important aspect of community cohesion, bonding, and development, a way through which grandfathers will pass on legacies to grandsons and granddaughters, and a way through which Canadian life will continue to thrive as unique from life anywhere else on the planet (Gruneau and Wilson (28). Thus, hockey as the community cohesive, suggests a rather anti-masculine view of the sport.Although hockey and its male players have long been associated with Canadian myth and lore, claims that hockey is a sexist organization upon which Canadian culture is based cannot be believed. That hockey is an art form is both believed by its biggest fans and supported by Gruneau and Wilson, and that it is a center of community involvement can be witnessed by Canadians throughout the country. An art form subject to deconstruction and a community cohesive, hockey can mean many things to many people, contributing to the creation of a unique culture that….....