Book Feature A Hotly Contested Affair: Hockey in Canada (by Andrew C. Holman)

Andrew Holman

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Book Feature. Andrew Holman: A Hotly Contested Affair – Hockey in Canada

A Hotly Contested Affair: Hockey in Canada
is a collection of documents that trace the history of Canada’s national winter game from its “founding” in Montreal in the mid-1870s into the early twenty-first century. Composed of 157 edited and annotated sources, the volume is organized into ten chapters based on the sport’s central themes. An Evolutionary Game explores hockey’s incremental changes in rules and rhythm over time. A National Banner demonstrates how English and French Canadians have used hockey to imagine themselves as national communities. An Arena for Commerce delineates hockey’s long relationship with moneymaking. An Essentially Violent Game highlights the sport’s reputation for roughness: how much was too much. A National Problem captures the long discussion about hockey as an “enemy” to education, a source of labour exploitation, and a vehicle for Americanization. A Question of Order, A Question of Character examines the belief that hockey could generate respectable civic behaviour and proper conduct among its players, coaches, and followers. Hockey Talk explores the technology and drama of hockey narration (via newspapers, telegraph, radio and television) and the concern in Quebec about hockey broadcasts as a threat to the French language and culture. Hockey’s “whiteness” is examined in Race and Social Order along with the challenges that Indigenous, Black, and Asian players and teams made to that dominance. A Gendered Endeavour pieces together the quest among women and girls to play on integrated and segregated teams, and to control their own sport. Finally, An International Calling Card illuminates the mercurial history of “Team Canada,” from its unmatched international power in the early twentieth century to its current state as one among many contenders for world titles in the twenty-first century. Ten short interpretive essays introduce each theme.

Paperback copies of A Hotly Contested Affair cane be purchased on The Champlain Society’s website at https://champlainsociety.utpjournals.press/hockey-in-canada-pb. 378 Pages. $34.95 CAD.

Excerpt from the Introduction to Chapter 5, “An Essentially Violent Game.”
“‘The old eastern trick, borrowed from lacrosse, of using the butt end of the stick in short, sharp jolts should have no place in O[ntario Hockey Association] hockey,’ the editor of the London Advertiser wrote toward the end of the hockey season in March 1906. ‘It is dangerous and cowardly. There is no room in the O.H.A. for crashing a man into the boards, for cross-checking, for slashing across the ankles and leg, and decidedly none for cracking a man across the head. There is no place for tripping and giving the hip, or for charging like a mad bull at a player.’ In 1896, in his account of ‘Hockey in Ontario’ for Toronto’s Massey’s Magazine, Fred. G. Anderson noted the overly vigorous play in the city’s bustling Bankers’ League: “Many battered ankles, tattered hands, and effective body blows are given during the progress of a match.” Rough play was a staple ingredient of hockey’s brand in Canada, as central to the game’s identity as its speed and capacity for pretty passing plays. Almost from its beginning, hockey’s essential violence was a subject of roiling discussion – at the rinks, in the associations’ boardrooms, and in the press. By the early 1900s, it was agreed among most of the game’s followers that the best sort of hockey must have physicality, but not in excessive measure. The meaning of “excessive” has been hockey’s puzzle ever since.

Hockey rulebooks have struggled to keep up with infractions, to parse adequately the acceptability of hockey’s physical play. In 1877, the first rules expressly forbade ‘[c]harging from behind, tripping, collaring, kicking or shinning.’ By 1900, the OHA had added ‘cross-checking’ and ‘pushing’ to the list and granted officials wide leeway to “rule off” offenders. The chase continues. In 2018, the Hockey Canada Rule Book’s Section 6, which lists and assesses ‘Physical Fouls,’ is 11 pages long; Section 8, ‘Stick Fouls,’ is four. However, rulebooks disguise as much as they reveal … [H]ockey violence waxed and waned, and waxed and waned again over the past century and a half. While routine physical play has been consistently present since the 1890s, hockey experienced two waves of extraordinary on-ice violence, the first in the 1900s, the second in the 1970s, both of them explainable by changing social and economic contexts.

Since then, public tolerance for hockey ‘donnybrooks’ has been limited to marginal factions of fans. Most have begun to recognize the real costs of on-ice episodes such as Boston Bruin Marty McSorley’s vicious February 2000 slash to Canuck Donald Brashear’s head, Todd Bertuzzi’s March 2004 mugging of Colorado forward Steve Moore from behind, and the case of Don Sanderson, a Whitby Dunlops player in Ontario’s senior league who, having lost his helmet in a December 12, 2008, fight with a Brantford Blast player, tripped, hit his head on the ice, and fell into a coma from which he never recovered. In the aftermath, a Maclean’s magazine article asked: ‘Can We Please Now Ban Fighting in Hockey?’ One of the legacies of Canada’s two waves of extreme violence is, in the twenty-first century, a new consciousness about player safety and concern about head trauma and its consequences.”

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About the Author:
Andrew Holman teaches history at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. A native of St. Catharines, Ontario, he has taught and written about sports history for about 20 years. He is the author of four books on hockey, including Hockey: A Global History (coauthored with Stephen Hardy) which was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2018 and won the 2019 Paul Kitchen Award from the Society for International Hockey Research. His work on hockey has also appeared in the Journal of Sport History, Sport History Review, The Conversation, The Washington Post, Sports History Weekly, and Inside Hockey.
 
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JackSlater

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Looks interesting, might be something I pick up for a Christmas time read. The first and sixth chapters in particular interest me.
 

Theokritos

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@Andrew Holman

Due to the variety of topics you cover it's hard to decide where to start, but since you've quoted the chapter on violence, I will start there:

"Hockey experienced two waves of extraordinary on-ice violence, the first in the 1900s, the second in the 1970s, both of them explainable by changing social and economic contexts."

The 1970s wave of violence has been discussed on this board before; its nature and scope, how it was related to the end of the sponsorship era and the need of junior clubs to fill seats, how it led to government reports in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, how it differed from the violence seen in the O6 era, etc. The 1900s are more of an uncharted territory for us. Without giving away everything you have researched and all the details the documents in your book entail, could you give as a rough assessment of what happened then & there?
 
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Andrew Holman

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@Andrew Holman

Due to the variety of topics you cover it's hard to decide where to start, but since you've quoted the chapter on violence, I will start there:

"Hockey experienced two waves of extraordinary on-ice violence, the first in the 1900s, the second in the 1970s, both of them explainable by changing social and economic contexts."

The 1970s wave of violence has been discussed on this board before; its nature and scope, how it was related to the end of the sponsorship era and the need of junior clubs to fill seats, how it led to government reports in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, how it differed from the violence seen in the O6 era, etc. The 1900s are more of an uncharted territory for us. Without giving away everything you have researched and all the details the documents in your book entail, could you give as a rough assessment of what happened then & there?

Sure thing. It's interesting subject. A lot of hockey readers will know about the spike in hockey violence in the 1900s and 1910s (so forgive me the "TMI" here). There was an increase in reported episodes of extreme violence (brawling, slashing, slugging, stick swinging and fighting) – beyond the sort of routine roughness that happened (and happens) in the course of a game. This thrilled some spectators and horrified others. OHA president John Ross Robertson was famously quoted in 1904: “We must call a halt to slashing and slugging, and insist upon clean hockey ... before we have to call in a coroner to visit our rinks.” But that's exactly what happened. In 1905, Alexandria's Alcide Laurin was killed by a stick swung by Maxville’s Allan Loney and in 1907, Cornwall's Charles Masson did the same thing to Owen “Bud” McCourt of the Ottawa Victorias Both cases resulted in murder charges. Between 1905 and 1918, there eight episodes extreme enough to result in formal charges of assault, four of them in 1907. Only after WW1 did this first wave of exceptional violence begin to wane. The documents that I include in this book feature newspaper coverage of the court cases, and some responses from journalists and a leading physician. So, the question is why then? I think the answer has to do with the way the game grows across Canada after 1895. Once the preserve of upper middle-class would-be gentlemen, like Arthur Farrell, whose main aim for playing sports like hockey was, they claimed, to have fun, demonstrate their love of fair play and perform their gentlemanly status, by the turn of the twentieth century, hockey is now being played by virtually everyone in the country, including Canadians in working-class neighbourhoods and in the mining, lumber and mill towns, for whom that "amateur gentleman" ethos meant nothing. They wanted to win, for their towns, their companies, and for themselves, too, because it meant they could earn some pay (at first under the table) and then later openly. That new, hyper-competitive environment - with more at stake on the games' outcomes leads, I believe, to a more violent game. Joe Hall and Sprague Cleghorn are new symbols of the game (alongside, of course, Cyclone, Newsy, and Hobey). The wave subsides a little, during WW1 (the War affected so many things in Canada in profound ways), but there is no going back to the tamer version of game as it was played in the early 1890s.
 

BadgerBruce

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Sure thing. It's interesting subject. A lot of hockey readers will know about the spike in hockey violence in the 1900s and 1910s (so forgive me the "TMI" here). There was an increase in reported episodes of extreme violence (brawling, slashing, slugging, stick swinging and fighting) – beyond the sort of routine roughness that happened (and happens) in the course of a game. This thrilled some spectators and horrified others. OHA president John Ross Robertson was famously quoted in 1904: “We must call a halt to slashing and slugging, and insist upon clean hockey ... before we have to call in a coroner to visit our rinks.” But that's exactly what happened. In 1905, Alexandria's Alcide Laurin was killed by a stick swung by Maxville’s Allan Loney and in 1907, Cornwall's Charles Masson did the same thing to Owen “Bud” McCourt of the Ottawa Victorias Both cases resulted in murder charges. Between 1905 and 1918, there eight episodes extreme enough to result in formal charges of assault, four of them in 1907. Only after WW1 did this first wave of exceptional violence begin to wane. The documents that I include in this book feature newspaper coverage of the court cases, and some responses from journalists and a leading physician. So, the question is why then? I think the answer has to do with the way the game grows across Canada after 1895. Once the preserve of upper middle-class would-be gentlemen, like Arthur Farrell, whose main aim for playing sports like hockey was, they claimed, to have fun, demonstrate their love of fair play and perform their gentlemanly status, by the turn of the twentieth century, hockey is now being played by virtually everyone in the country, including Canadians in working-class neighbourhoods and in the mining, lumber and mill towns, for whom that "amateur gentleman" ethos meant nothing. They wanted to win, for their towns, their companies, and for themselves, too, because it meant they could earn some pay (at first under the table) and then later openly. That new, hyper-competitive environment - with more at stake on the games' outcomes leads, I believe, to a more violent game. Joe Hall and Sprague Cleghorn are new symbols of the game (alongside, of course, Cyclone, Newsy, and Hobey). The wave subsides a little, during WW1 (the War affected so many things in Canada in profound ways), but there is no going back to the tamer version of game as it was played in the early 1890s.

Thank you for this detailed response, which is much appreciated. I look forward to reading your entire book very soon.

Question related to the “first wave” of violence: did your research reveal that “wagering” also played a role? This is an area of inquiry I’ve been exploring in relation to another fairly violent sport played in Canada in and around the same time period, so I’m curious to know your view.
 

Theokritos

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Sure thing. It's interesting subject. A lot of hockey readers will know about the spike in hockey violence in the 1900s and 1910s (so forgive me the "TMI" here). There was an increase in reported episodes of extreme violence (brawling, slashing, slugging, stick swinging and fighting) – beyond the sort of routine roughness that happened (and happens) in the course of a game. This thrilled some spectators and horrified others. OHA president John Ross Robertson was famously quoted in 1904: “We must call a halt to slashing and slugging, and insist upon clean hockey ... before we have to call in a coroner to visit our rinks.” But that's exactly what happened. In 1905, Alexandria's Alcide Laurin was killed by a stick swung by Maxville’s Allan Loney and in 1907, Cornwall's Charles Masson did the same thing to Owen “Bud” McCourt of the Ottawa Victorias Both cases resulted in murder charges. Between 1905 and 1918, there eight episodes extreme enough to result in formal charges of assault, four of them in 1907. Only after WW1 did this first wave of exceptional violence begin to wane. The documents that I include in this book feature newspaper coverage of the court cases, and some responses from journalists and a leading physician. So, the question is why then? I think the answer has to do with the way the game grows across Canada after 1895. Once the preserve of upper middle-class would-be gentlemen, like Arthur Farrell, whose main aim for playing sports like hockey was, they claimed, to have fun, demonstrate their love of fair play and perform their gentlemanly status, by the turn of the twentieth century, hockey is now being played by virtually everyone in the country, including Canadians in working-class neighbourhoods and in the mining, lumber and mill towns, for whom that "amateur gentleman" ethos meant nothing. They wanted to win, for their towns, their companies, and for themselves, too, because it meant they could earn some pay (at first under the table) and then later openly. That new, hyper-competitive environment - with more at stake on the games' outcomes leads, I believe, to a more violent game. Joe Hall and Sprague Cleghorn are new symbols of the game (alongside, of course, Cyclone, Newsy, and Hobey). The wave subsides a little, during WW1 (the War affected so many things in Canada in profound ways), but there is no going back to the tamer version of game as it was played in the early 1890s.

Very interesting. By coincidence, another thread on this board is featuring a relevant quote today highlighting the discussions back then:

It's in this Billy Breen quote for instance after a game between the Winnipeg HC and the Winnipeg Maple Leafs in 1907.

"Our fellows are purely amateur and cannot afford to appear at their offices with their heads all bandaged up. Their employers object, and so do the men themselves. If they cannot go through a game without being disfigured, they do not want to play. There is no use trying to play with such players as we were against in this game, so we retire from the game entirely. We want no more of it under any circumstances. Such hockey is nothing short of brutal."

– Ottawa Journal, Dec. 23, 1907, pg. 2
So the transition from amateur hockey to professional hockey was accompanied by a wave of on-ice violence and while the violence was subsequently reined in, the game was never quite the same again. I wonder just how gentlemanly pre-1895 hockey was though, in particular compared to hockey today.
 

Andrew Holman

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Thank you for this detailed response, which is much appreciated. I look forward to reading your entire book very soon.

Question related to the “first wave” of violence: did your research reveal that “wagering” also played a role? This is an area of inquiry I’ve been exploring in relation to another fairly violent sport played in Canada in and around the same time period, so I’m curious to know your view.
Yes, I think you're right. Betting on hockey was on the rise in the same period that on-ice violence increases, for sure, and though sources don't make the connection, I don't think we need a smoking gun to make the claim. It was there, though not always recognized as a part of the commercial spectacle that rink owners and league officials were putting on. In another section of the book (one on "Communicating the Game") I have included three published stories of the same Montreal AAA vs. Ottawa game, each of them written for different audiences. The ones published in Ottawa and Montreal newspapers included details on the occasional violence and the betting frenzies that went on during the game; the one published in New York's Outing magazine (the leading advocate for amateurism and gentlemanly play in all sports) mentions nothing at all of either activity.
 
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Andrew Holman

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Very interesting. By coincidence, another thread on this board is featuring a relevant quote today highlighting the discussions back then:


So the transition from amateur hockey to professional hockey was accompanied by a wave of on-ice violence and while the violence was subsequently reined in, the game was never quite the same again. I wonder just how gentlemanly pre-1895 hockey was though, in particular compared to hockey today.
It's a good question and fits right in with the moving definition of "excessive." The game described in the Montreal Shamrocks' Arthur Farrell's book Hockey: Canada's Royal Winter Game (1899) and, for example, in Montreal bourgeois writer Gertrude Cundill's short story "A Hockey Match" (1899) seems pretty tame compared to the 1907 games between the Montreal Wanderers and the Ottawa "Silver Seven," as Stacy Lorenz has written about. Hard to imagine that these styles occupied the same hockey world, but they did. As you say, the game was in transition and by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the genie was out of the bottle.
 

Theokritos

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Excerpt from the Introduction to Chapter 5, “An Essentially Violent Game.”
“‘The old eastern trick, borrowed from lacrosse, of using the butt end of the stick in short, sharp jolts should have no place in O[ntario Hockey Association] hockey,’ the editor of the London Advertiser wrote toward the end of the hockey season in March 1906. (...)”

What does the eastern refer to?
 

Andrew Holman

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What does the eastern refer to?
In a word: "Montreal" (but sometimes the press referred to eastern hockey as everything from Ottawa to Quebec City). Likewise "western" hockey in these early days referred to Ontario; "Northwest" was used to refer to Port Arthur, Rat Portage [Kenora], Winnipeg and beyond. The "poster children" for these sorts of tactics in lacrosse and hockey were members of the Montreal Shamrocks (though not the gentlemanly Farrell). The Shamrocks represented gritty working-class Irish Montreal (Pointe-Saint-Charles) and when necessary played a style that was "on the edge" - a contrast from teams like the saintly Montreal Victorias or university teams in Toronto.
 
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Theokritos

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@Andrew Holman

Your presentation also mentions the discussion of Americanization, albeit in connection with the next chapter A National Problem. Considering the transition to professional hockey was faciliated or at least accelerated by bluntly professional clubs and leagues in the USA , would it be right to assume that both professionalism and the spike in violence were also viewed as examples of Americanization? Presumably by the guardians of the amateur principle in Canada who found themselves unable to stop these developments?
 
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Andrew Holman

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@Andrew Holman

Your presentation also mentions the discussion of Americanization, albeit in connection with the next chapter A National Problem. Considering the transition to professional hockey was faciliated or at least accelerated by bluntly professional clubs and leagues in the USA , would it be right to assume that both professionalism and the spike in violence were also viewed as examples of Americanization? Presumably by the guardians of the amateur principle in Canada who found themselves unable to stop these developments?
Tough question. Of the two terms you suggest, "accelerated" seems more accurate. Lacrosse in Canada had already established open professionalism by 1904 and, despite the chest thumping by organizations such as the OHA, the writing was on the wall for simon-pure amateurism in Canadian hockey. A good many senior amateur teams were already "amateur in name only" in Canada (and paid star players under the table or with no-show jobs). The IHL in the US ended the charade, but open professionalism in Canadian hockey was inevitable and comes very soon after the IHL collapses in 1907. The question of violence is a tricky one. It depends on which sources you trust. American sources at this time point to the Canadian game as being inherently more violent. Newspaper accounts of amateur hockey in Boston and NY point the finger at Canadian expats who are recruited to play for teams like Boston's Navy Yard and Shoe Trades clubs or New York's Crescent club and carried with them from Canada a more violent version of the game into the U.S. And, of course, Canadian newspapers denounced the IHL for fomenting a more violent breed of hockey to satisfy unsophisticated American audiences who allegedly didn't understand the finer points of the game but were thrilled by the rough stuff. Plus ca change, right? The same arguments were made by Canadians and Americans in the 1970s when the Broad Street Bullies were in their heyday. The question is tough because "Americanization" is so hard to prove or identify. It was believed to be a real thing by a good many Canadians (still is - just ask fans in Quebec City or Hamilton) and so, as historians, we have to give it its due. But maybe professionalization was just hockey following a commercial, capitalist logic. And hockey was plenty rough before and beyond the IHL. So, I think it is bit too narrow to pin these complex changes on Americanization alone. Sorry for the longwinded answer.
 
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Theokritos

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And, of course, Canadian newspapers denounced the IHL for fomenting a more violent breed of hockey to satisfy unsophisticated American audiences who allegedly didn't understand the finer points of the game but were thrilled by the rough stuff. Plus ca change, right? The same arguments were made by Canadians and Americans in the 1970s when the Broad Street Bullies were in their heyday. The question is tough because "Americanization" is so hard to prove or identify. It was believed to be a real thing by a good many Canadians (still is - just ask fans in Quebec City or Hamilton) and so, as historians, we have to give it its due. But maybe professionalization was just hockey following a commercial, capitalist logic. And hockey was plenty rough before and beyond the IHL. So, I think it is bit too narrow to pin these complex changes on Americanization alone. Sorry for the longwinded answer.

No worries, it's appreciated. And it reminds me of a discussion we've had a few months ago where a Brian Conacher quote from 1970 came up. It contains exactly what you refer to:

"The growing incidents of bawling in the game, I believe, is not unconnected with the "image" of the game that is now being presented to the violence-oriented American hockey fan. The large numbers of people that are being exposed to the game now are often not aware of the skills and finesse that gives the game its real appeal. But brawling is something they do understand, so as far as the games, television acceptance, and crowd appeal is concerned, it probably doesn't hurt to have a few good brawls. If there is a little blood the better for people with colour sets."
 

Andrew Holman

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No worries, it's appreciated. And it reminds me of a discussion we've had a few months ago where a Brian Conacher quote from 1970 came up. It contains exactly what you refer to:

"The growing incidents of bawling in the game, I believe, is not unconnected with the "image" of the game that is now being presented to the violence-oriented American hockey fan. The large numbers of people that are being exposed to the game now are often not aware of the skills and finesse that gives the game its real appeal. But brawling is something they do understand, so as far as the games, television acceptance, and crowd appeal is concerned, it probably doesn't hurt to have a few good brawls. If there is a little blood the better for people with colour sets."
Great quote, and from a guy who had a perspective on the game as both a player and a broadcaster. I haven't seen that one. This theme is emphasized a lot in William McMurtry's report on hockey violence that he was commissioned to write by the Ontario Government in 1974. He names the Flyers as the leading culprit, but the NHL in general. Bit of a chicken vs. egg debate, I think, at the end of the day. My book features several documents on this issue.
 

Theokritos

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Great quote, and from a guy who had a perspective on the game as both a player and a broadcaster. I haven't seen that one. This theme is emphasized a lot in William McMurtry's report on hockey violence that he was commissioned to write by the Ontario Government in 1974.

Virtually at the same time as Conacher, Soviet player Slava Starshinov wrote the following about the NHL. (It's only semi-relevant, but you might also enjoy this quote.)

"One day I finally got to see a fight with my own eyes. It was at a match between New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens. My premonition had not deceived me. It was all a show, additional entertainment for oversaturated viewers. The member of the Bourgeoisie who has already seen everything in the world craves sharp spices in a sporting spectacle and has a thirst for blood. And professional hockey teams, who are depending on the wishes and fancies of the audience, are forced to deliver some 'pleasure' to tickle their nerves from time to time." (From Starshinov's 1971 autobiography.)

So both Conacher and Starshinov thought that the quest for television acceptance and crowd appeal respectively for appealing to the wishes and fancies of the audiences was a main factor. But the difference between their outlooks is obvious too: the Canadian Conacher blamed the violence-oriented American hockey fans while the Soviet Starshinov pointed the finger at the member of the Bourgeoisie with his thirst for blood.
 

Andrew Holman

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Virtually at the same time as Conacher, Soviet player Slava Starshinov wrote the following about the NHL. (It's only semi-relevant, but you might also enjoy this quote.)

"One day I finally got to see a fight with my own eyes. It was at a match between New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens. My premonition had not deceived me. It was all a show, additional entertainment for oversaturated viewers. The member of the Bourgeoisie who has already seen everything in the world craves sharp spices in a sporting spectacle and has a thirst for blood. And professional hockey teams, who are depending on the wishes and fancies of the audience, are forced to deliver some 'pleasure' to tickle their nerves from time to time." (From Starshinov's 1971 autobiography.)

So both Conacher and Starshinov thought that the quest for television acceptance and crowd appeal respectively for appealing to the wishes and fancies of the audiences was a main factor. But the difference between their outlooks is obvious too: the Canadian Conacher blamed the violence-oriented American hockey fans while the Soviet Starshinov pointed the finger at the member of the Bourgeoisie with his thirst for blood.
Yes, there are two very different agendas at play there. Hockey violence was a sort of screen onto which various parties projected their own fears. Both of them, when they looked at hockey violence, were interpreting it in a way that fit their worldview, whether that involved Canadians' penchant for worrying about Americans capturing or altering "their" game, or Soviet propaganda that somehow views hockey violence as a sign of bourgeois excess. Makes one wonder: can't a fight just be a fight?(!) Not when hockey symbolizes so much to all who play it and watch it. It's cliche to say that it's "more than a game," but it really is.
 
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Theokritos

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@Andrew Holman

Since I've just read today that you'll be covering an aspect of the Hockey Talk chapter at the upcoming SIHR Fall Meeting with a presentation of its own ("Inventing Hockey Drama: Telegraphic Reports and the Birth of Play-by-Play Before Radio"), could you give as a general outline of how written hockey coverage has changed over the decades? The few very early hockey reports from newspaper that I have come across striked me as vivid and picturesque, though lacking general concepts and attempts at systematization. Which seem like to two related sides of the same coin and quite fitting for an, let's say, unsophisticated stage of development (both of the game itself and its observation & description). Then, from the mid to late 1900s on, I have seen game reports that already talk about tactics and strategies. (But then, I haven't researched it extensively, so they might already appear earlier.)
 
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Andrew Holman

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@Andrew Holman

Since I've just read today that you'll be covering an aspect of the Hockey Talk chapter at the upcoming SIHR Fall Meeting with a presentation of its own ("Inventing Hockey Drama: Telegraphic Reports and the Birth of Play-by-Play Before Radio"), could you give as a general outline of how written hockey coverage has changed over the decades? The few very early hockey reports from newspaper that I have come across striked me as vivid and picturesque, though lacking general concepts and attempts at systematization. Which seem like to two related sides of the same coin and quite fitting for an, let's say, unsophisticated stage of development (both of the game itself and its observation & description). Then, from the mid to late 1900s on, I have seen game reports that already talk about tactics and strategies. (But then, I haven't researched it extensively, so they might already appear earlier.)
That's a big subject, and a fascinating one. Hockey newspaper reportage starts in the 1880s and 90s as a series of brief game reports (who played, where, the outcome, the referees/goal umpires, and a list of players). These reports were often scattered throughout the local news. It's in the 1900s and 1910s that we see big changes: the brief hockey accounts continue, but they are now located in a special Sports Section (1-2 pages dedicated solely to that subject) and augmented by a (often anonymously penned) column called "Puckerings" or "At the Rink" -- by the 1920s, these columns are written by named authors, and some go into syndication). But the biggest change that happens in the hockey press in the 1900s and 1910s, is the introduction of drama into hockey writing. In addition to the short reports, big papers like the Toronto Telegram and Montreal Star (and even the highbrow Toronto Globe) begin to feature 3-4 full-length renderings of local hockey games that they "spin" theatrically. In these stories, sportswriters detailed the course of the game, the game's star players, the size and character of the crowd, and - usually - some sort of metaphor. Last night's game was "brains versus brawn," "scientific play versus tradition," "David versus Goliath," or some variation on these themes and others. They played the ethnic card too - somehow, readers were supposed to be able to imagine (and reconstruct) the game in their own minds better if the writer could impose a handy ethnic stereotype (i.e the Canadiens were the "fleet French," St. Mike's was the "fighting Irish," Indigenous teams were described as "wily," "crafty," "cunning." Happily, we no longer do that sort of thing, but we still use the dramatic formula in hockey writing (and in all sports writing), to make a simple game seem like a stage play. It's part of what attracts us to the game, and makes us want to have a big mug of fresh coffee at hand when we open (or click on) the sports section on a Sunday morning.
 

Theokritos

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It's in the 1900s and 1910s that we see big changes: the brief hockey accounts continue, but they are now located in a special Sports Section (1-2 pages dedicated solely to that subject) and augmented by a (often anonymously penned) column called "Puckerings" or "At the Rink" -- by the 1920s, these columns are written by named authors, and some go into syndication). But the biggest change that happens in the hockey press in the 1900s and 1910s, is the introduction of drama into hockey writing. In addition to the short reports, big papers like the Toronto Telegram and Montreal Star (and even the highbrow Toronto Globe) begin to feature 3-4 full-length renderings of local hockey games that they "spin" theatrically.

Looking forward to your presentation on November 7.

Speaking of "the French": In the chapter A National Banner you cover how "English and French Canadians have used hockey to imagine themselves as national communities". Could you expand a little bit on that?
 

Andrew Holman

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Oct 4, 2020
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Looking forward to your presentation on November 7.

Speaking of "the French": In the chapter A National Banner you cover how "English and French Canadians have used hockey to imagine themselves as national communities". Could you expand a little bit on that?
Another big topic and in the book I only just wade into it because it's so complex. I wish I could afford it more space. What I argue in the book (and what the documents show) is that hockey has been a vehicle for both Canadian nationalism and Quebec nationalism for a long time. Until pretty recently (say the 1990s), we Canadians were proud but not very expressive about loving the country (now we're both!), but hockey was an exception. Canadians have long been fond of claiming hockey as "our" game and for a long time, Canadian teams dominated (almost) always on the international stage. The sport acted (and still acts) as a kind of lightning rod, a chance to bring a far-flung and diverse country together in 60-minute "moments" of unity and celebration (think 1972, 2010, and many more). Maybe that sounds overblown (certainly it does to non-hockey people), but there's good evidence for it. In Quebec, hockey has been used by francophone Canadians to observe and celebrate their own distinct identity as a "nation within a nation," to paraphrase hockey historian (and former Prime Minister) Stephen Harper. In the 1890s and 1900s, French-Canadian newspaper editors saw Montreal club teams like Le National and Le Montagnard as expressions of French-Canadian prowess (the pride of the nation) and, after 1909, the Canadiens became the torch bearers. When they stepped on the ice, French Canada did, too; when they won, French Canada "won," too. The meaning that the Canadiens have for francophone Canada has softened a little since the 1980s, but to many Quebecers they still represent "notre equipe nationale." But we see Quebec nationalism in hockey in other ways, too. In 2006, a 25-year old idea (born in the days of Levesque's PQ) to establish a Quebec national team that could play in elite international tournaments and the Olympics was once again floated, and ultimately smothered by Hockey Canada and others, but the idea won't die. We may well see it again. Hockey for many Canadians and many Quebecers is stand-in for national pride, worth, legitimacy. Just different definitions of "nation."
 
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Theokritos

Global Moderator
Apr 6, 2010
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@Andrew Holman

Somewhat related: I've read that you have also written a contribution to a book about the 1972 Summit Series, your essay being titled: "Les Russes et Nous: The 1972 Summit Series and the Birth of Hockey Sovereignty in Quebec." I'm curious how the Summit Series ties into the issue of Quebec nationalism in hockey.
 

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