WARNING! If you are a “political atheist” as some people now proudly say, or the kind to repeat the good little catechism that “you must not mix sports and politics”, stop reading this article immediately and, I don’t know, go to BetMachinchose to bet on the chances that Taylor Swift will do the kickoff at the 1st game of the Cleveland Browns season in 2038.
Or, stay with us to dig a little deeper into the close relationship between sports and nationalism.
This has already been discussed three times on our site this week by my colleagues Max Truman, Charles-Alexis Brisebois and Kevin Vallée.
The first two opposed the creation of a Quebec team, following the motion deposited by the PQ, while Kevin Vallée went with a thorough text supporting the idea.
I could criticize my colleagues’ texts Truman and Brisebois, whom I adore and who have encouraged me to publish this text.
We are in my field! I submitted a master’s thesis on nationalism and sports in 2008, presented its conclusion in the collective work Hockey and Philosophy: The True Hardness of the Mind in 2009 and created the course Sports, Identities and Societies in college in 2020!
I will simply remind you of these few points that Kevin Vallée elaborated on in his text yesterday :
1- You must not confuse a country, a province, a territory or a region with a nation. Quebec is a recognized nation, not Ontario, not the Maritimes, not Western Canada.
2- We could easily be in favor of creating a Quebec team and support Canada against the USA, especially in the current political context! We were indeed tens of thousands to do so! As serious identity polls show, the first political identity for a large number, if not still a majority of Quebecers, is Quebec. Canada forms a second political identity for many. Quebecer first, Canadian second. For his part, the average Saskatchewanian identifies with Canada before identifying with his province… which is not a nation.
3- In what way would the “context” of the Quebec nation and a Quebec team in non-Olympic international competitions be different from the Scottish context in the soccer World Cup?
4- A sports reason, such as thinking that a Quebec team would not be good enough to win international competitions, is not a relevant and sufficient reason to oppose its creation. Only political reasons and decisions can prevent its creation.
5- In sports, even if it has already looked better on the ice, Quebec, like the Czech Republic, Finland and Slovakia, could still surprise any nation on a given evening and make those who identify first with Quebec proud, whether they want to make it a country or not…
I’ll stop here. If you want to dig deeper into Canadian and Quebec nationalism and the predominant role that hockey plays in it, go read my old stuff or re-read the excellent text that Kevin published yesterday!
Oh Canada!
So let’s get back to the Confrontation of the 4 nations and what it meant for Canada, which once again managed to use hockey to promote its national unity and “unite the country”.”
If we had doubts before the start of the hostilities, the proof has finally been made, the Confrontation of the 4 nations, proposed by the NHL in place of its traditional (and soporific) All-Star Game, has marked minds.
It did not approach the emotions, or the existential anguish, caused by the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR, but still, we navigated a bit in those waters…
Because yes, it is indeed the “America” of the subtle Trump 2.0 that added a lot of spice to the competition.
Trump, who did not attend the final, is not recognized as a great hockey fan. But here is a high-level competition that opposed the United States to three countries that, in general, do not really embrace the Manichean, individualistic and authoritarian vision of the American billionaire and criminal… re-elected democratically (!!!) last November after encouraging the attack on the Capitol, the very symbol of American democracy, less than four years ago! This is not made up.
A national identity to reaffirm
Of course, the last American election did not do much to improve national unity in the land of Uncle Sam. We can guess. And a US victory this week would not have changed anything. Hockey is not as popular south of the border…
But Canadian national unity had also been flying low for a long time. In fact, we don’t think it has flown very high, with both wings at the same time, very often in its entire history, the “Canada” being at the base a somewhat vaporous idea “from one ocean to another”…
The last time the Maple Leaf was so united, the Canadian identity was so strong as in the wildest dreams of Elvis Gratton, is probably during that famous 1972 Summit Series.
Yet, national unity and identity are not that complicated, it’s a bit like powdered juice, we only need to add one ingredient.
The “us against them” is the water of national unity, it’s the substance of the feeling of identity. Especially in Canada.
Justin Trudeau reminded us of this himself recently in an interview on CNN “When they try to define their national identity [Canadians] tend to say: ‘We are not Americans’”.”
And “us against them”, the ancestral agon, the ontological conflict, Trump generates with every tweet and there were a lot of them, both on and off the ice, during the two games between Canada and the United States.
Let’s not forget that the nation is first and foremost a “spiritual principle” as Ernest Renan thought, or an “imagined community” as Benedict Anderson demonstrated, which can only exist through one form or another of nation-building, of national identity construction.
Thus, modern Canada, far beyond the “railway” of your secondary 4, is above all an idea built by a multitude of symbols and traditions conveyed and popularized from the 20th century, starting with hockey, its national sport, which has become its great pride, largely due to the broadcast of hockey on CBC starting in 1933.
Since then, Canada = hockey.
And an epic game between Canada and the United States – as was the case again in the final – can certainly mark the collective imagination for a while. It had been nine years since the best players from the two countries had not faced each other, and in the current political context, everything was magnified…
In short, Canada’s victory in this competition will not curb Trump’s expansionist leanings and ideas of greatness, nor will it solve Canada’s significant economic and political challenges, both with its neighbor and within its own borders.
But, like a spark plug, it could certainly inspire a dose of ambition and inspiration, as the exploits of Maurice Richard did for French-Canadian nationalism, the ancestor of Quebec nationalism.
It could create a climate, a mindset, an ideal momentum for Canadian national affirmation and the opportunistic unveiling of certain policies. An opportunity for Canada – its elites and population in unison – to emphasize its strength, unity, and resilience as we’ve been hearing everywhere since Thursday evening.
On the other hand, a defeat would have caused a narcissistic wound, which Trump (and his spectacle policy) would have taken great pleasure in amplifying and ridiculing with great kicks in the face.
If that were the case, the Canadian national psyche would have taken some time to recover…
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