On September 28, 1972, steps from the winding edge of the Moscow River, and inside the Luzhniki Arena, a touchstone of Canadian culture was forged.

That night the deciding game of the Summit Series between Canada and what was then the U.S.S.R. was played. At stake was the title of the world’s most preeminent hockey nation, but the significance was much greater than that. It was Canadian hockey, headstrong and stiffnecked, against Russian hockey, balletic and lithe. It was free-market capitalism against communism. West against East. Framed for the Canadian audience as “us” against them.

The Soviet team was more than a mere opponent in a hockey game, they were a visible other, and that distinction, that otherness, gave Canadians the opportunity …show more content…
These platforms disseminate the images and sounds of hockey, celebrating a puritanical Canadian style and helped build the games players into celebrities, worshipped at the altar of Canadian culture. This myth-making process, a basic building block of every culture, expressed what it meant to be a true Canadian, and created a mythical community around hockey. In the future, how broadcasters and the media choose to frame the game will continue to retain this potency and …show more content…
Other sports like soccer and basketball, which are more affordable to play, and come without the same cultural baggage as hockey, are quickly building their own significance on a national scale.

As often is the case for sports, hockey has become a bastion of nationalism. There is still the thrill of spectatorship in hockey, of Canadians organized around the game—using cultural activity to help whittle down a collective identity—but hockey can no longer speak to the concept of a unified, singular Canadian. To be effective, it must speak to us all.

That means recognizing Canada’s demographic shift, from the white middle class to a more diverse and multicultural state, and connecting, on a much broader scale, with hockey’s female audience, wherein their participation in the sport and surrounding culture is viewed as an equal partnership, rather than a threat to hockey’s overtly stated