What does it say about Canada that the Prime Minister has written an extensively researched book about the beginnings of hockey?
Perhaps it reveals that the sport is our great leveling-out mechanism. A love for hockey erases notions of class and creed. Stephen Harper, a member of the distinguished Society For International Hockey Research and author of “A Great Game: The Forgotten Leafs and the Rise of Professional Hockey,” could sit in a bar (albeit, a well-secured and rehearsed public appearance) and talk hockey with the locals and have common ground.
The setting is turn of the 20th century Canada and the conflict is between Puritans, like John Ross Robertson (newspaper publisher, philanthropist, and president of the Ontario Hockey Association) who championed amateur sports, and entrepreneurs and “freelance hockeyists” like Alex Miln and Bruce Ridpath who ran the early professional Toronto hockey clubs.
According to Harper, professional hockey players were viewed as socially disreputable much in the same way that we now view athletes who partake in performance-enhancing drugs. Getting paid for “play” was nonsense to supporters of the amateur game whose only other experience with pro sports at the time in Toronto was bare-knuckle boxing and cock-fighting.
In the text, one learns that pro hockey players were once perpetual free agents, sometimes playing for more than one team within the same season.
Amateurs and professionals alike were driven, even then, by a common goal: the Stanley Cup. But soon, amateurs would only compete for the John Ross Robertson Cup or the more-renowned Allan Cup, which is still awarded today to amateur hockey champions in Canada.
Allan Cup winners used to represent Canada at the Olympics and, in fact, were one of the first victims of the ascendancy of Russian hockey before the 1972 Summit Series.
“A Great Game” is certainly full of enlightening, if not minute, details about the infancy of hockey. We learn about Robertson and the OHA recognizing the subtleties of the game and evolving its rules accordingly. Under him, the game adapted delayed penalties, goal nets, team captains, and dropping the puck for a faceoff.
Harper provides some detail on the rise of the Patrick family and their remarkable influence on the sport, with such innovations as reducing the number of players on the ice from seven to six aside and introducing larger rosters and on-the-fly line changes. Craig Patrick, a descendant of that line, was just recently relieved of his job as an assistant coach for the Florida Panthers.
There are moments that will make the reader smile, like the title for example. “A Great Game” should not be confused with “The Game” or “Home Game,” both by Ken Dryden.
Nor should one confuse it with “Home Team” by Roy MacGregor or “The Game of Our Lives” by Peter Gzowski. Who said Canada was a series of small towns?
As well, the nicknames for hockey players back then were ceaselessly funny, for the most part. For all the unimaginative nicknames of today like “Ovi” for Alex Ovechkin, or “Kaner” for Patrick Kane, there was still evidence of this 100 years ago.
The famous Bruce Ridpath was simply “Riddy.” But gone are the days of “Newsy” Lalonde (at one time employed by a newspaper) who would score the first goal in Montreal Canadiens history or the aptly named “Uncle” Gross.
The conception of this book alone would make for obvious yet hilarious cracks. From sportswriter Scott Feschuck, “Governing Canada: now almost a full-time job.”
‘Athletic war’
But for all the populism, light-hearted historical lessons, and genuine hockey-nerdery, Harper does in fact wish to tell the reader of the superiority and inevitability of professionals over amateurs. He particularly aims to criticize Robertson as hypocritical and dogmatic in his dealings with the professional ranks.
He calls it the “Athletic War,” one that is fought and lost by amateur hockey. “Gradually [post–1970], even the Olympic movement—by then an unholy alliance of European elitists and Soviet communists, who were really marketing nationalism more than amateurism—came to terms with the inevitabilities of paid sport,” writes Harper.
Surely the amateur ranks had its share of hypocrisy and corruption and it is important for hockey fans to learn of this dichotomy in sport. Still, it would be useful for Harper to at least humor the reader with more views on why a concept like amateur sport might appeal to Canadians.
Could it be honorable and what values might it profess? Given the current environment of labor negotiations, work stoppages, and elevated player salaries, it is odd to hear a writer praise the virtues of those who would make business out of sport.
Stephen Harper has written an informative book on early hockey in Canada with a particular focus on Toronto and natives of the city and fans alike will take pleasure in the small details here. Readers will likely be fascinated to hear that there is a forgotten Stanley Cup victory in the city’s history, awarded exactly 100 years ago to the Toronto Blue Shirts in 1913-14, before the establishment of the National Hockey League in 1917.
Yet the author cannot help but make his primary point clear, again and again.
From the Acknowledgments section, he give thanks to another home-grown author, “Roy MacGregor, who once again demonstrated the superiority of the consummate professional to that of the aspiring amateur.”
What does it say about Canada that even the PM will find time to write about hockey? It says that the game is a touchstone to our national identity.
A Great Game is another chapter in our “annual outpouring” and it’s got Harper’s fingerprints all over it.
Joe Pack has written for TheHockeyWriters.com, is a member of the Society for International Hockey Research and has his own blog at www.upperbodyinquiry.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoePack
