Hockey season is near, and in Canada that means an endless parade of sappy Tim Horton’s commercials, players willing to give it 110 per cent, heartfelt Globe and Mail features and drunk Habs fans. However, this season the staleness surrounding the meaning of hockey in Canada is about to get a shakedown.
While players lace up their skates and Don Cherry picks out another plaid suit this fall, John Soares Jr. will be at Carleton to research how hockey played a role during the Cold War and how the game affects Canadian diplomacy.
Soares is visiting Carleton through the Fulbright program, an exchange program between Canada and the United States, to research his project, called Canada and International Ice Hockey, 1947-87.
Growing up in New England, Soares said he played the game as a young man.
“I understood that hockey is significant in cosmic terms, but I also knew that it would be a hard case to make academically,” he said.
During his initial research, Soares said he found there were monumental celebrations after hockey games on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
“That’s when I realized that this is something I can look at seriously, analytically and academically and no one is going to be sneering too hard.”
Soares says his research will look at how hockey and politics interact. While at Carleton, he will be sifting through records of the government’s involvement in improving Canada’s performance in world hockey.
“On one hand you have the competition, the rivalry. It’s often discussed as a quest for symbolic victory: the democracies want to beat the communists, the communists want to beat the democracies. It’s proxy warfare,” he said. “However, there’s more to it than that. You have two political, social and economic systems. Sports give you an arena where you have regular tests of the two systems’ ability to develop human potential.”
Soares said hockey played an important role because, of all the sports in the Cold War, it’s the one played at its highest level.
“How do you compare a piece of classical music by Shostakovich versus a piece by Aaron Copland? It’s a hard thing to compare in a tangible way. A hockey game is straight forward. There’s a goal tally at the end,” he said.
Who knew that lacing up your skates could be so politically charged?
During the Cold War, Canadians were simultaneously trying to restore their international image with hockey victories and trying to use hockey to improve relations with the Soviet Union, Soares said.
“Many countries tried to find a way to dampen Cold War tensions in fear of nuclear attack. Hockey, because it can be so violent by nature, is one of the best sports in demonstrating the competitive aspects of diplomacy.”
While somewhat hesitant, Soares said there’s something to be said about the way sports affect international relations.
“Athletes tend to develop bonds with other athletes over skill and end up respecting each other. It’s hard to see someone as part of a political system when you’ve played a sport against them,” he said.
“I hope sports will save the world.”