Hockey and Spectacle: Critical Reflections on Canadian Culture

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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Peter Zuurbier

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS

CALGARY, ALBERTA JULY, 2011

Peter Zuurbier 2011

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In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Abstract Canada possesses few symbolic markers to build any unified conception of national identity around. Spectacle has played a distinct role in the development and maintenance of Canadian identity for decades. Televised professional hockey is a crucial component of the spectacle. For Canadians the ritualized viewing of professional hockey on television over generations has ingrained the spectacle within traditional notions of hockey mythology. The Canadian hockey spectacle is the subject for examination in this thesis. Theories surrounding spectacle and myth are harmonized and applied to two recent game-texts. The results indicate a great deal of celebration and affirmation of notions traditionally found in Canadian hockey mythology. Moments of contestation were examined for their efficacy in re-shaping Canadian hockey discourse within the spectacle. Finally, the notion of contestation is interrogated and deemed an extension of the logic of contemporary spectacle, encouraging deeper captivation.

ii Acknowledgements

Foremost, I would like to express the profound gratitude I feel towards my thesis supervisor, Dr. David Taras, who saw something in me I didn’t see myself. Dr. Taras provided me with the latitude to write and think freely, and possessed the vision to sharpen my focus when necessary. His advice is invaluable and the generosity of his time, energy, and spirit is truly humbling.

I was fortunate enough to also benefit from the wisdom of Dr. Charlene Elliott, who has assumed innumerable vital roles in my life during my graduate studies. This thesis would not have been possible without her resolute support of both me, and my work.

I would like to express my most sincere appreciation to: Dr. Rebecca Sullivan, Dr.

Maria Bakardijeva, Dr. Bart Beaty, Dr. Brian Rusted, Dr. Barbara Schneider, Dr. Richard

Sutherland, Dr. Christine Sutherland, Dr. Gwen Blue, Dr. Avril Torrence, and Dr. Lee

Easton. Each made a unique contribution to my scholarship, and my work would not be shaped as it is without their influence.

My graduate studies would not have even been possible were it not for the persistence of Dr. David Mitchell, Lynne Perras, Megan Mitchell, Marion Hillier, and

Denise West-Spencer. All of them fought vigilantly for my inclusion into the program.

Finally, I would like to thank my aunt, Ann Henley, for her support throughout my studies.

Peter Zuurbier, May 2011

iii Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………… ii Acknowledgements…………………………………………………….. iii Table of Contents………………………………………………………. iv

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………………. 1

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………. 20 Spectacle………………………………………………………. 20 Myth…………………………………………………………… 32 Spectacle and Sport…………………………………………… 37 Hockey – Mythic Traditions and Criticisms………………….. 41

CHAPTER THREE: CASE STUDY- TSN …………………………… 53 Hockey Cubed…………………………………………………. 54 Player Commodification within Hockey Cubed………………. 58 Consuming Nationalism………………………………………. 62 Assertions of Canadian Superiority…………………………… 63 Exclusion and Contestation of Violence……………………… 66

CHAPTER FOUR: CASE STUDY – HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA. 69 Myth Creation Within the Spectacle…………………………... 70 Overt Consumer Sponsorship…………………………………. 77 Celebrations and Contestations of Masculinity……………….. 80 Don Cherry and the Reification of Violence………………….. 88 Ambiguity within the Spectacle………………………………. 93 Exclusion within the Spectacle………………………………. 94

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION………………… 97

REFERENCES………………………………………………………… 107

v 1

Chapter One: Introduction

Canadians share a unique relationship with ice hockey. The sport carries significant mythic currency and is one of a limited number of identifiable symbols of

Canadian nationalism. But while the Canadian relationship with hockey is exactly as it appears, how it appears is not as it seems. The appearance of hockey on televisions across the country over generations has encouraged the development of a distinct connection between sport, television, and Canadian nationalism. But the spectacular mediation along with the mythic exploitation of this relationship ensures that all is not as it seems.

Ice hockey is mythologized as human mastery of nature, of man’s command of the savagery of the elements that are intrinsic to Canadian climate and geography. The reputed attributes of those who play (and excel at) the game align with those of the country’s founders who traveled the frozen lakes and rivers, building Canada by bettering the rugged wilderness that surrounded them. Richard Harrison (2009) writes:

“In the myth of the origin of hockey, Canada finds all the elements of its own

creation: winter; team work; hard work; the passing of tradition from parent to

child; an idyllic blending of European and Aboriginal cultures… in the image of

water frozen forever, Canadians find the image and condition for the Canadian

virtue of endurance.” (p. 153)

But for the majority of Canadians it is the appearance of hockey, the images in front of them on the television screen that makes up their hockey experience. Ice hockey is officially recognized as Canada’s co-national sport (along with the increasingly marginalized sport of lacrosse). The mythology surrounding the game invokes and

2 inspires memories from the many who enjoyed childhood hockey in its various forms.

While for others the televised professional ice hockey spectacle provided by the National

Hockey League (NHL), along with its broadcasting partners, forms the basis for the relationship between individual Canadians and hockey. Nation and sport share a particularly symbiotic relationship in Canada. Mass media works as the intermediary between the two and the Canadian audience.

Mass media plays a significant role in the way Canadians understand themselves.

Many Canadians will never see and experience the full expanse of their country, most will only see and experience certain parts of it for themselves. Despite this the tenuous notion of a unified country remains. In Canada one of the most significant symbols of national unity is hockey. Jason Blake (2008) writes:

“A Prairie farmer or a Newfoundland outport resident will recognize the snow on

the Rocky Mountains, but the peaks will not be an experienced reality; neither

will a francophone Quebecoise always be able to complain about the cold in a

common tongue with an Anglophone Albertan. They will all, however, be

familiar with hockey.” (p. 20)

For the majority of Canadians the country is an imagined community built through simulation. (Baudrillard, 1981) Images and sounds have been assembled and projected to Canadians who trust them as realistic interpretations of far off places, yet all fall under the shadow cast by the maple leaf. With the regular broadcasting of professional ice hockey on the state-funded airwaves of the Canadian Broadcasting

Corporation (CBC) for over half a century, images of the sport are an established part of the simulated, imagined community of Canada.

Back to appearances not being all that they seem, Canadians watching professional hockey broadcasts on television, much like any audience watching any professional sport broadcast on television, are not merely watching a hockey game. They are watching a re-assembled narrative, a hyperreal (Baudrillard, 1981) version of the game action. There are three levels of abstraction (Debord, 1968) that separate the television audience from the live sporting event. The first level of abstraction occurs through the camera, which automatically privileges certain images, as it cannot possibly capture the same amount of visual information as the human eye. Of course there is not one static camera mounted to capture game action. There are a multitude of cameras catching the game action at various angles. All of these images and sounds are then re- assembled into an audio/visual collage that is then broadcast as a game narrative that closely resembles the live game action. Images perceived by producers as important or exciting are further fragmented and re-assembled into micro-narratives that are used to augment the larger game narrative. They help retain audience interest outside of the live game broadcast. For the audience the two levels of abstraction create a feeling of spatial transformation which Nick Couldry describes as “liveliness”. Couldry (2003) writes:

“’Liveness’ naturalizes the idea that, through the media, we achieve shared attention to realities that matter for us as a society.” (p. 99) Constructed into the production of the broadcast is the third level of abstraction, the spectacle. While posing as mere considerations and accommodations of entertainment value, the spectacle allows for the prioritizing of particular messaging within the production of the re-assembled game

4 narrative. It is within this re-assembly that the influence of spectacle is inserted, or inserts itself, seamlessly imposed onto the relationship between the audience and the game. This imposition becomes itself marginalized, appearing weightless or inconsequential. The re- assembled broadcast not only precisely mimics the actual game, but the constructed game narrative creates a hyperreal version of the game for the audience through technical innovation. This production of the broadcast overwhelms the collapse in space and time experienced by the audience through enhanced entertainment value and imposes the spectacle onto them.

My study will explore the relationship spectacle plays in the development and maintenance of Canadian identity. This will be done by analyzing the televised Canadian hockey spectacle as text, looking at specific moments of its construction into the game broadcast. Beck, Bennett, and Wall (2002) write:

“Communications Studies needs to maintain a definition of text which is as big as

the world itself, if not beyond… This extends the scope of subjects to all of the

significant events of a society and culture: baptisms and marriages, celebratory

meals, sporting events, and music festivals.” (p. 46)

When these significant events occur within the realm of mass media they do so under the patronage of the spectacle. To explore this dynamic the analysis will be done through a theoretical lens that is primarily based in spectacle.

Opening up Canadian television broadcasts of hockey to textual analysis will offer insight into the intentions of the spectacle at the point of its imposition, the broadcast itself. Game-texts are considered for the purposes of this study to include all

5 pre- and post-game and intermission coverage surrounding the game, as well as the game itself. The broadcast is both the realization of the production and simultaneously the point of audience consumption. Interrogating games as texts is ideally suited to gauge the effects of spectacle as they are being put into action. Moments of spectacular imposition are intended to shape the worldview of the audience. Typically this occurs through

(re)affirmation of the pre-existing discourse surrounding a subject that has been the foundation of its positioning within the spectacle. However there are also moments of contestation within the spectacle, moments where the dominant messaging is challenged on its own ground. For the purposes of my thesis, contestation within the spectacle comes from moments of ambiguity. It occurs when the linear messaging of the spectacle is interrupted; when established, and re-established signposts are called into question. This ambiguity sparks a struggle for meaning between incongruent messaging and can be seen as a moment of contestation.

Looking at games as texts places the contested nature of contemporary spectacle at the forefront. John Fiske (1987) writes:

“The television text is, like all texts, the site of a struggle for meaning. The

structure of the text typically tries to limit its meanings to ones that promote the

dominant ideology, but the polysemy sets up forces that oppose this control… All

meanings are not equal, nor equally easily activated, but all exist in relations of

subordination or opposition to the dominant meanings proposed by the text.” (p.

93)

Studying games as texts will provide the critical distance needed to interrogate specific components of each game broadcast that either conform to or challenge the spectacle.

The texts used for my analysis are two games broadcast on Canadian television: the TSN Wednesday Night Hockey broadcast on March 2, 2011, and the first game of the

March 26, 2011 CBC Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. These games are random selections from the season-long broadcast schedules of the two national providers of

NHL hockey. The choice of games intends to test the dynamic of the spectacle. The logic of the spectacle demands that the framework be applicable to any moment of any game, since not only are already extraordinary events transcended into the sublime, but also, routine, commonplace events are made exceptional. “The image of a fireworks on display becomes a spectacle because of its televised presentation, in addition to its original appeal as an attraction, and similarly mundane events can become spectacle through a televised context.” (Leslie Kan, 2004)

Larger-scale, more prominent sporting events will almost certainly (and necessarily) feature spectacular construction due to their perceived prestige. But I believe that a more effective analysis of the relationship between hockey, spectacle, and

Canadian identity can be accomplished through an examination of mundane, conventional, regular season games. The games-texts used for this thesis are completely non-specific, allowing for evaluation of the effectiveness of the theoretical framework as applicable to any national Canadian NHL broadcast. Theories of spectacle involve attempting to understand the effects of the extreme proliferation of images in contemporary society, making analysis of the entirety of its impact unwieldy. Hockey’s

7 longstanding relationship with Canadian culture ensures the ritualization of viewing, but the spectacle has the responsibility of providing a consistent product in order to encourage the ritual. Every individual game broadcast is responsible for continuing to provoke similar rituals of viewing. Each one is responsible for the continued

(re)construction of the spectacle. As a result each game becomes metonymical of the spectacle at large. Each broadcast is a small representation of the larger whole of the spectacle, meaning analysis of individual games can be seen as emblematic of the entirety of the spectacle. The spectacular imposition and/or contestation should occur regardless of the perceived importance of the game.

By looking at game-texts I’m looking for the kinds of values that are being reinforced within the spectacle, and the meaning these values have. As well, I’m looking for the kinds of traditional elements of Canadian hockey discourse that are being questioned and contested, and in what ways, if at all. The spectacle provides a symbolic notion of Canadian identity that is reinforced by the ritual of watching, but how is identity negotiated? Is it simply being continually reinforced within the spectacle, or are there elements of contestation to be found? The contestation that occurs moment by moment within the televised hockey spectacle may be considered a symbolic and discursive battleground where Canadian identity is re-negotiated in real time. If this is the case then to what extent does contestation occur? In what spaces and around what subjects does it occur?

Canada is geographically enormous, severely regionalized, culturally fragmented, politically divided, and diversely populated; built and continually building on immigration, with an identity that is constantly shifting and renegotiating itself.

Communications technology has long been responsible for the development and maintenance of common conceptions of ‘Canadianness.’ Maurice Charland (1986) writes:

“In Canada, the constitution of a ‘people’ of individuals united under a liberal

state requires that the barriers between regions be apparently transcended. As it

permits mastery over nature, technology offers the ability of that apparent

transcendence.” (p. 32)

Traditional notions of nationalism are not requisite to Canadian identity, but this in conjunction with the aforementioned features of Canadian nationhood has led to a lack of unified national identity. The lack of a distinctive, uniform Canadian identity is due to the dearth of anything distinctively, uniformly Canadian. To combat this lack of common identity, the CBC was launched in 1936 as a way of developing and maintaining the notion of a common conception of Canada. Charland (1986) writes:

“Canada’s first national network was established by a railway. While local radio

had been pioneered by private entrepreneurs, national radio was the product of a

state agency, the CNR. The national railway saw in radio a means to foster

immigration, to enhance its own image, and to support the project of

nationhood… State-supported radio, following the railroads path, presented those

who live in Anglophone Canada with an image of Canada.” (p. 32)

Concerns surrounding national unity were only compounded by the perceived dangers of American cultural influence on Canadian sovereignty. This sparked CBC radio programming that was intended to link Canadians from coast to coast by

9 broadcasting content that was uniquely Canadian. Beginning in 1933 this included regular broadcasts of NHL hockey. Bart Beaty (2006) writes:

“In Canada hockey has achieved a position of dominance that privileges it in

ways approximated only by other media rather than other sports. The history of

efforts to build national audiences and consensus in Canada is inextricably tied to

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the history of the CBC is likewise

linked to that of hockey.” (p. 113)

The NHL has established itself as the predominant men’s professional hockey league since its formation in 1917. During its infancy the NHL featured six teams, including one in each of Canada’s largest cities: Montreal and Toronto. Hockey Night in

Canada, which first aired on radio in 1933, was and continues to be the flagship broadcast of hockey in Canada. In 1952 it was moved to the television airwaves, where it continues today from the autumn pre-season schedule on through the Stanley Cup

Playoffs.

Even during the early days of the CBC hockey enjoyed a privileged place within

Canadian society, firmly entrenched as a pastime that was uniquely representative of the

Canadian experience. But as the broadcasts became popular they began to shape the

Canadian cultural landscape. Rick Gruneau and David Whitson (1993) write:

“By the end of the 1930’s the audience for Hockey Night in Canada… had nearly

doubled to two million listeners, never before had so many Canadians from all

corners of the country regularly engaged in the same cultural experiences at the

same time… Hockey Night in Canada began to create for hockey, and in

particular NHL hockey, a deeply rooted, almost iconic place in Canadian culture.”

(p. 101)

The traditional, mythical alignment of ice hockey with Canadian identity increased as the opportunity to participate as audience gained relative equivalency with actual participation in the game. The ritualized practices of spectatorship bridged the gap between the experience of playing and the experience of spectating, aligning both as essential components of performing Canadian identity.

So not only by lacing up the skates, but also by just listening to or watching hockey from home, the audience participates in the symbolic (re)creation of ‘being

Canadian’. This practice further entrenches and naturalizes the alignment of hockey mythology within Canadian culture. But mythology does not offer an all-encompassing or completely accurate recounting of that which it represents. Rowe, McKay and Miller

(1998) write:

“Myths are not total delusions or utter falsehoods, but partial truths that

accentuate particular versions of reality and marginalize or omit others in a

manner appealing to deep-seated emotions. Dominant myths depoliticize social

relations by ignoring the vested interests surrounding whose stories become

ascendant in a given culture.” (p. 121)

My contention is that if televised hockey, which is mediated by spectacle, is a predominant component of Canadian identity then Canadian identity itself succumbs to mediation by the spectacle. While appropriating and prioritizing myth to legitimize its power, the spectacle further reinforces itself through the encouragement of ritual. Ritual

11 practices and performances associated with spectatorship utilize participation to legitimize and reify established myth. Both requisite and encouraged practices surrounding watching hockey on television are rituals that reinforce the alignment of hockey mythology with Canadian identity. This alignment is perpetuated within the spectacle. But myths are not fixed, they are subject to appropriation by vested interests.

Guy Debord (1988) writes:

“The spectacle proves its arguments simply by going round in circles: by coming

back to the start, by repetition, by constant reaffirmation in the only space left

where anything can be publicly affirmed, and believed precisely because that is

the only thing to which everyone is witness.” (p. 19)

This flexibility and adaptability of both form and content are shared characteristics among myth and spectacle. And as the spectacle imposes its capitalist ethic onto Canadian hockey mythology, the consumption of spectacle as a means of identification becomes aligned with the consumption of products.

As a projection of society that encourages adaptation to its standards and dimensions, the spectacle has permeated contemporary society. Its standards and dimensions, the worldview it creates, becomes the standard to which people in their daily lives aspire to and attempt to mimic. Since the spectacle is created and maintained by certain vested interests, they play a determining role in the construction of the worldview.

They use the spectacle as a means of social control. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner

(2007) explain the theory of spectacle writing:

“In one sense, it refers to a media and consumer society, organized around the

consumption of images, commodities, and spectacles, but the concept also refers

to the vast institutional apparatus… to all the means and methods power employs,

outside of direct force, to relegate subjects passive to societal manipulation.” (p.

The social control the spectacle attempts to exert over the society it proliferates most typically involves the maintenance of a capitalist ethic and the promotion of increased consumption. In this way Guy Debord’s spectacle is an augmentation of previous Marxist critiques of the re-organization of society around capitalist priorities, placing them within a technologically deterministic viewpoint surrounding contemporary media. Debord (1967) writes:

“The spectacle corresponds to the historical moment at which the commodity

completes its colonization of social life… commodities are now all that there is to

see; the world we see is the world of commodity.” (thesis 42)

Though Debord’s theory of spectacle offers a particularly dystopic view of society, the notion is an extremely useful foundation on which to interrogate the impact the all-encompassing nature of mass media content has on contemporary life.

The evolution in mass media that has occurred since the late 1960’s when Debord did his work encourages an understanding of spectacle as a space offering the potential for appropriation by differing interests who can use its logic for their own messaging.

Sometimes this messaging is congruent with the intents of the spectacle, but when it is incongruent the differences that result represent tensions within the spectacle. Spectacle

13 in contemporary society is marked by contradiction and reversal that have the potential to occur moment by moment. Consider Douglas Kellner’s (2003) notion of spectacle as a site of conflict, where: “It is preferable to see contending spectacles in a contemporary moment to see spectacle itself as contested terrain.” (p. 11) Contemporary spectacle is theorized as a negotiated space where diverging interests are in constant, on-going contestation as they attempt to use spectacle as the means to achieve their own ends.

Moment by moment spectacle shapes itself through these conflicting forces, developing, organizing, and maintaining itself through its audience. Kellner’s conception of contestation in contemporary spectacle opposes Debord, who short of televised revolution does not allow for contestation or reversal. This thesis will test the opposing spectacular dynamics within Canadian NHL broadcasts.

I anticipate that different vested interests will engage each other within the spectacle, attempting to assert their agenda. If so, the spaces within the televised hockey spectacle where contestation occurs become spaces where discourse surrounding

Canadian identity is also being contested.

This thesis will examine whether within the game text there are individual moments where the spectacle’s logic can be laid bare. Typically spectacular intrusion occurs during moments of heightened intensity within the game action and specific occurrences (goals, saves, hits, fights, etc…) are highlighted within the broadcast.

However exciting moments within the broadcast are not the only moments available for analysis. Because both the thrilling and the mundane can be made spectacular, ongoing discourse during momentary lulls in game action must also be considered part of the analysis. The concept of the moment is essential, as a moment within the spectacle,

14 regardless of duration, is a space where specific messaging may be asserted. Moments in the spectacle are self-contained systems, intertextually linked within the larger, whole body of the text. Moments can never be repeated, as such their similarities and differences, the way in which they change, become essential to understanding their relationship with each other. The fluid nature of myth, its ability to shift and shape itself to suit its intended purpose, requires that myth be understood as occurring moment by moment and examined as such. Roland Barthes (1957) writes:

“Myth essentially aims at causing an immediate impression – it doesn’t matter if

one is later allowed to see through the myth, its action is assumed to be stronger

than the rational explanations which may later belie it.” (p. 130)

As with myth, despite continually establishing intended messaging, the spectacle is eternally ephemeral. It can only ever exist moment by moment. After one moment has been broadcast it immediately passes, and with few exceptions it is gone forever. Debord

(1967) writes:

“To analyze the spectacle means talking its language to some degree… For what

the spectacle expresses is the total practice of one particular economic and social

formation; it is, so to speak, that formation’s agenda. It is the historical moment

by which we happen to be governed.” (thesis 11)

Moments within the spectacle are crucial to understanding and analyzing its contemporary logic. These moments characterize what Kellner (2003) refers to as:

“Articulations of the salient hopes and fears, fantasies and obsessions, and experiences of the present.” (p. 27) My thesis seeks to distill and scrutinize these moments.

The three key elements of Canadian hockey discourse for the purpose of this thesis are notions of nationalism, capitalism, and masculinity. These elements can be seen as traditional markers of Canadian hockey discourse within the spectacle. They offer potential sites of conflict and struggle as areas where Canadian hockey mythology is affirmed or contested within the spectacle. My argument is that the dynamics between nationalism, capitalism, and masculinity are crucial signposts for studying the relationship between spectacle, Canadian hockey mythology, and Canadian identity.

Interrogating individual games as texts primarily requires separating the mimetic portion of the televised game narrative, the showing of the game action, from the diagetic portion, the telling of the game narrative. The mimetic portion of the game consists of the fragmented images that constitute the visual representation of the game action on television. The diagetic portion of the game text involves the adjoining commentary to the game action, as well as the production component of the game narrative, since certain portions of the game action are highlighted while others are marginalized. The diagetic portion of the game-text is where the spectacle will be imposed. In analyzing these games

I’m looking for specific moments where the diagetic structure of the narrative exploits the established elements of Canadian Hockey mythology. Gary Whannel (1992) writes:

“To dissect the complex combination of title montages, presentation, contributors, clips, action replays, and actuality, it is more useful to think in terms of conflicting tensions.”

(p. 93) Through the separation of what Whannel (1992) refers to as “attempts to achieve transparency and desire to build in entertainment values”, (p. 93) my analysis will specifically target moments where the mimesis of the game narrative is commandeered by those providing the diagesis. Specifically, moments in the narrative where

16 nationalism, capitalism, and masculinity are engaged within the spectacle will be scrutinized. I will examine elements of the ongoing hockey discourse as they emerge within the televised game, then deconstruct and demystify their intentions within

Canadian hockey discourse. My objective is to determine and interrogate spaces where the verbal narration and commentary surrounding the game action, working in concert with cues and tropes embedded into the visual narration of the game, exploit the ubiquitous yet liquid form of Canadian hockey mythology, and to what ends.

Since this is a philosophical inquiry, typical scientific proofs will not be involved in the analysis. Instead this thesis will focus on testing the efficacy of the established theoretical framework in probing discourses surrounding hockey and Canadian identity in contemporary society. The intent of this thesis is to provide an entry-point for unpacking the role of spectacle in contemporary Canadian ice hockey discourse.

Analysis of the game-texts is guided by Barthes (1994) notion of ‘studium’, which highlights the individual’s unique experience with the game text. Barthes (1994) writes:

“Most (photographs) provoke only a general, and, so to speak, polite interest…

The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of

inconsequential taste.” (p. 27)

Anchored by the established elements of Canadian hockey mythology, (For the purposes of this study: nationalism, commercialism, and masculinity) any moment within the game text that attracts an individuals interest can be considered suitable for analysis.

Since each moment is intentionally constructed for broadcast, any specific moment that

17 attracts audience attention becomes a metonymical expression of the Canadian hockey spectacle. The key is to interrogate the spectacle at its moments of intention, to first identify, and then deconstruct the moments or instances of spectacular imposition within the game broadcast. Kellner (2003) writes:

“One needs to see the intersection of media texts and spectacles with the public,

to mediate between the power of media and the audiences, to see how texts and

spectacles of media culture encode significant social issues and material.” (p. 29)

Attracting an individual’s studium is the first step towards understanding this intersection, since studium provides the entryway for understanding the intentions of those behind the construction of the spectacle. Barthes (1994) writes:

“The studium is a kind of education… which allows me to discover the Operator,

to experience the intentions which establish and animate his practices, but to

experience them ‘in reverse’, according to my will as Spectator. It is rather as if I

had to read the photographers myths in the Photograph, fraternizing with them,

but not quite believing in them.” (p. 28)

Moments where one’s studium is attracted invite further contemplation. The distance in the relationship between the producer and the consumer of images shifts.

Something in the signifier, the image, demands that the consumer investigate its signification, the meaning they received from it. Studium inspires an individual interest that is inherently unique and subjective, but it is this unique and subjective nature that allows it to be universally applied, and applicable to techniques of qualitative analysis.

This thesis is necessarily limited in scope. As a largely theoretical work, it offers little empirical or quantitative data. The goal of this thesis is that of puzzle making, of gaining a better understanding of who we are as Canadians. This is achieved by developing a theoretical basis for understanding the role spectacle plays in the mediation between Canada’s national sport and Canada’s national identity. The analysis intends to highlight the spectacle’s role in the mediation of Canadian identity through professional ice hockey games on Canadian television.

It is important to note due to the polysemic (Fiske, 1987) nature of visual messaging, (despite the attempts at audio/visual anchorage by producers) and the vast array of cultural differences in Canada among other variables, any study undertaken involving audience reactions or interpretations must necessarily fall outside of the scope of my work. The theoretical nature of this thesis does not allow the latitude for analysis of audience perceptions; instead it is about interrogating spectacular impositions. As well, because the moments analyzed within the game text are both ephemeral and chosen subjectively, attempting to contextualize both spectacle and Canadian identity in any time frame outside of the contemporary era would be speculative.

Since the analysis is guided by the notion of studium it can only be based on my personal experience with the game text. But as this thesis is intended to test the theoretical efficacy of spectacle in Canadian hockey discourse, a similar process can be applied by anyone with an understanding of spectacle and myth to anywhere where the spectacle is imposed on Canadian hockey discourse. Since any and all Canadian hockey broadcasts feature spectacular imposition, they all become open to individual analysis. In this way though the results of the analysis are not replicable, the process in which they

19 were obtained is. This thesis is intended as a means of entry into the theoretical deconstruction of Canadian hockey discourse through the lens of spectacle.

Building on the rich legacy of Canadian scholarship surrounding hockey and

Canadian identity that has been established by Gruneau, Whitson, Blake, Holman, and

Robidoux among many others, this thesis intends to achieve two things. Primarily it is a unique philosophical inquisition into the relationship between sport, state, and spectacle in Canada. This thesis seeks to disrupt the established convention that hockey is the foundational component of Canadian identity by focusing on the role spectacle plays within the dynamic. Examining televised hockey through the lens of spectacle provides a new and unique means to approach further understanding of the relationship between nationalism, sport, and television in Canada. It places the televised mediation of the game at the forefront. The role of media in the broadcasting of hockey is a component of many of the studies done on Canadian hockey discourse. But the role media plays as an intermediary between sport and audience has never been the key focus of a study on hockey. Whereas the spectacle surrounding professional ice hockey in Canada has been previously considered incidental in Canadian hockey scholarship, this thesis places the spectacle at the forefront. Theories of spectacle have never been a key focus of

Canadian hockey scholarship, and hockey has been excluded from the wide array of previous work done on sport and spectacle in contemporary society. This study offers an opportunity to contribute to both.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

The relationship between spectacle and national identity has traditionally eluded

Canadian scholarship like a puck sliding by players on a shift change. Though there has been extensive scholarship surrounding the variety of roles spectacle plays in contemporary sport, existing scholarship surrounding media spectacle has neglected hockey. At the same time, theories of spectacle have not been applied to studies involving televised professional ice hockey in Canada. Spectacle has often been situated as incidental in hockey scholarship. Though occasionally included as a consideration, it has never been the focal point. This thesis aims to create a unique voice in the academic conversation surrounding hockey and Canadian national identity by placing theories of spectacle at the forefront.

The exposition of my hypothesis will be rooted in four thematic bodies of scholarship: theories surrounding spectacle, spectacle and sports, as well as the literature that celebrates Canadian hockey mythology, and the critical work done on hockey in

Canada.

Spectacle

Spectacle as a means of entertainment and latent coercion has existed since long before the advent of electronic media. The enhancement of certain events due to aesthetic ornamentation and decoration has added to both the prestige and the power of events.

This has been the case since the Roman era of the Coliseum, through medieval public tortures and executions, and into the parades and pageantry of nineteenth century political campaigns. Traditional spectacles typically helped organize their societies around the

21 interests of those who ruled through their ability to gather an audience and disseminate messaging in a seemingly innocuous provision of entertainment.

Spectacle(s) also refer to a pair of eyeglasses, an intriguing allegory for the role of spectacle and media in contemporary society. Once placed on the nose, the lenses of spectacles offer a technologically mediated and technologically improved relationship with the world around them. The use of technology to improve human negotiation of the natural environment, and the subsequent sensory priority attributed to that technology, works to eclipse almost all other perspectives. Simultaneously the rain is being convinced of the prominence of its view and the insignificance of the spectacles’ role in presenting this view. The individual wearing the spectacles is presented with a seemingly superior version of reality which takes prominence, and on which they becomes thoroughly reliant.

As opposed to the aforementioned concepts of traditional spectacle, theories surrounding spectacle for the purposes of this thesis are better specified as related to spectacle in contemporary media. The spectacle consists fundamentally of elements of television and film production that are intended to increase audience participation through the creation of perceived importance surrounding an event that receives commercial media attention. Spectacle can be constructed around either intended onscreen extravaganzas, or used to transform mundane events into similar extravaganzas for onscreen entertainment. The power of spectacle is in its perceived weightlessness or inconsequence, a deceptive trait that masks its affect on the development and maintenance on both the parameters and intricacies of contemporary society. Debord

(1988) writes:

“The spectacle proves its arguments simply by going round in circles: by coming

back to the start, by repetition, by constant reaffirmation in the only space left

where anything can be publicly affirmed, and believed precisely because that is

the only thing to which everyone is witness. “ (p. 19)

The insidious nature of its power allows the spectacle to both normalize and marginalize itself within itself in a tautologic impenetrability. Even though the spectacle is in and of itself not real, the impact of its actions and effects makes it real. Spectacle commands attention and encourages audience submission to a constructed worldview with vested interests at the helm. In contemporary society, spectacle can be considered to have permeated daily life to the extent that generations have been born and raised under its control. Debord (1988) writes:

“The spectacle’s domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded

to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which the entire generation has

effectively lived constitute a precise and comprehensive summary of all that,

henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also what it will permit.” (p. 7)

Despite Debord’s ominous vision of whole societies being interpellated into false consciousness through a universe of images cast upon them, theories surrounding spectacle in contemporary society have shifted. What was previously a space controlled solely by dominant interests is now considered one where differing interests have the opportunity to compete with each other within the spectacle.

In relation to mass media spectacle is about the consumption of images. In a post- industrial world where almost everything has been commodified, the continued

23 commodification of bodies, through their minds, through the consumption of images, occurs within the spectacle. Benjamin Barber (2008) writes:

“To commodify an object is to transform multiple meanings into a singular

market meaning, namely the potential of a good or service to be bought and sold.

To commodify is thus to colonize, to impose singular meaning on

multidimensional goods.” (p. 247)

The spectacle has traditionally been considered a corollary of industry, and as such has been driven by industry to achieve its ends, namely to maintain themselves through cycles of production and consumption. Debord (1967) writes: “The spectacle is the self-portrait of power in the age of the power’s totalitarian rule over the conditions of existence.” (thesis 24) This worldview was perpetuated by the nature of television, which breaks the traditional public/private space dynamic. By bringing messaging that had traditionally been public domain into the intimacy of private space, television is able to disseminate messaging to a potentially larger group than could ever gather in a public space.

The body of scholarship surrounding media spectacle can be attributed to Guy

Debord, who develops the notion of the spectacle as a Western Marxist theory of mass medias organizing relationship with society. To Debord images in contemporary society are commodities equivalent in exchange value to traditional commodities like labour, goods, and services. Images are the principle form of consumption and contemporary society had become shaped and dominated through them. Debord (1967) writes:

“The spectacle corresponds to the historical moment at which the commodity

completes its colonization of social life. It is now plain to see – commodities are

now all that there is to see; the world we see is the world of the commodity.”

(thesis 42)

In the tradition of the Frankfurt school, Debord inverts traditional Marxist critiques of production in class maintenance to relate to consumption, while also building upon the critique of the effects of culture industries and a mass-produced society.

Specifically, Debord adapts Marxist notions of “reification” and “commodity fetishism” to critique what he saw as the ubiquitous presence and infinite power of mass media.

Commodity fetishism is rooted in the belief that in industrial society the relationships between commodities have overtaken pre-developed social relationships built on exchange value. The existence of commodities presupposes a hierarchy in their value. The hierarchy that was previously ascribed through labour is transformed by a valuation based on blind devotion, with no relation to the labour involved in its production. Commodity fetishism is a type of reification; it ascribes value to an object for reasons that have no relation with its use. The valuation of reified objects is arguably inversely proportional to necessity. The subsequent acceptance of this false valuation is endemic of societies organized around capitalist priorities.

Debord’s Society of the Spectacle is a collection of 221 paragraph-statements, or

‘theses’, theorizing the role and effects of the spectacle as an oppressive force controlling the proletariat. Anselm Jappe (1999) writes:

“Debord’s analysis is based on the everyday experience of the impoverishment of

life, its fragmentation into more and more widely separated spheres... The

spectacle consists in the reunification of separate aspects at the level of the image.

Everything life lacks is to be found within the spectacle, conceived of as an

ensemble of independent representations.” (p. 6)

These independent representations work in concert to frame a worldview that only includes that which benefits its intended messaging, excluding or opposing anything that falls outside of its logic. Debord (1967) writes: “The spectacle is not a collection of images, rather it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.”

(thesis 4) This mediation is intended to maintain dominance through the encouragement of watching in isolation. Audiences participating in the spectacle are interpellated into its worldview and succumb to its domination. By isolating individuals from each other but around the television consuming the spectacle, it is alienating individuals from each other and from the society they belong to. But the solution to this alienation is seemingly offered within the spectacle, which also marginalizes or prevents other conceptions of the world from intruding upon the edifice it is continually (re)constructing. As a result the alienation encouraged through the spectacle becomes cyclical and its logic becomes impermeable. Spectators are lulled into a false consciousness where engagement within the spectacle has supplanted engagement in real life.

Debord believes capitalist priorities are at the heart of the spectacle, where images have achieved a hierarchical equivalence with traditional, tangible commodities within mass media. Debord (1967) writes:

“Even in its most impoverished form (food, shelter), use value has no existence

outside the illusory riches of augmented survival… The real consumer thus

becomes a consumer of illusion. The commodity is the illusion, which is in fact

real, and the spectacle is its’ most general form.” (thesis 47)

The images within the spectacle are not only commodities themselves, they also construct and impose a worldview that is rooted in the capitalist ethic. The consumption of images is intended to inspire the consumption of more images, more reified goods and services, and nothing else. To Debord (1967) this is: “The society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making.” (thesis 53)

Over twenty-years later Debord continued his theorization of spectacle with his work, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. Debord expands on both the level of penetration the spectacle has achieved in contemporary society, and the impenetrable, tautalogic nature of its established role. Debord (1988) writes:

“The spectacle proves its arguments simply by going round in circles: by coming

back to the start, by repetition, by constant reaffirmation in the only space left

where anything can be publicly affirmed, and believed precisely because that is

the only thing to which everyone is witness… There is no place left where people

can discuss the realities which concern them, because they can never lastingly

free themselves from the crushing presence of media discourse and the varying

forces organized to relay it.” (p. 19)

The pervasive role spectacle has taken in contemporary society allows it to construct itself as impenetrable. Since any discourse must be formulated and articulated

27 within the spectacle to be considered relevant, it must bow to the spectacle’s requirements for inclusion and participation. In this way the spectacle monopolizes any possible discourse either by forcing it within its own designed parameters, or through practices of exclusion and marginalization. Debord (1988) writes: “With the most scientific assurance, the spectacle can identify the only place where disinformation could be found, in anything which can be said that might displease it.” (p. 47) But Debord’s notion of spectacle, even in its updated and extended form, leaves little space for anything other than a framework for understanding class domination in contemporary society.

In one of his lesser known works: ‘The Decline and Fall of the 'Spectacular'

Commodity-Economy’, Debord offers his own justification for the Watts Riots of August

1965 within the logic of the spectacle. Despite the inarguably extreme and violent nature of the riot, it was successful in appropriating the spectacle in order to focus on the interests of the rioters. Dominant interests had traditionally ensured groups like African

Americans were marginalized, if not ignored completely. Not only did the rioters hijack the spectacle for their own ends, their actions were attacking the power of the spectacle using its own logic. The images on TV displaying the looting dissolved the hierarchical valuation of these reified objects of consumption, allowing the images within the spectacle to contest the circular logic of its own construction. Debord (1965) writes:

“Since [African Americans] perceive that this parade of their consumption-to-be

desired is merely a colony of the wider system, they see through the lie of the

overall economic spectacle more quickly… they demand the egalitarian

realization of the American spectacle of everyday life: they demand that the half-

heavenly, half-earthly values of this spectacle be put to the test.” (p. 23)

Debord understands the ideal imposed by the spectacle was never intended to be accessible to African Americans because of racial and class constraints in the United

States, meaning they were impervious to its charms. The rioters reversed the power of the spectacle and used it to call into question its own authority. But this kind of spectacular reversal is limited in scope as Debord only sees it possible through televised violence and revolution.

The oppressive, totalitarian, alienating, and subjugating nature of the spectacle is not an attribute common to all of the scholarship that surrounds it. Daniel Dayan and

Elihu Katz (1992) see the media spectacle as a space of commonality and shared experience, writing:

“The secret of the effectiveness of these televised events, we believe, is in the

roles which viewers bring with them from other institutions, and by means of

which passive spectatorship gives way to ceremonial participation.” (p. 17)

The theory of spectacle Dayan and Katz develop, known as “media events”, diverges from Debord’s notion in regards to understanding of audience. Debord sees the spectacle as a force that lulled and interpellated audiences into worldviews constructed through false consciousness. Dayan and Katz (1992) assert that audience participation is key to the power of spectacle, writing: “Media events require not only the consent of the viewer, they require his or her active involvement. “ (p. 120) To Dayan and Katz spectacle is a new space for community and shared experience through participation. But

29 like Debord, this participation results in society shaping itself around the production/consumption dynamics of media events. Dayan and Katz (1992) write:

“Television builds a frame around a frame. It organizes the circumstances of

viewing, surrounding the event with other programs- before and after-which

make the event appear as the only important reality. Thus, television submits its

spectators to a complex rite of passage, subverting the usual definitions of what is

“important”, “real” or “serious.” (p. 103)

Concessions surrounding media events, decisions made in the process of broadcasting, are regarded as qualitative transformations of the very nature of public events, both in their production and in their consumption. Dayan and Katz (1992) also find common ground with Debord in their theorizing media events as promoting their inconsequence, of working to make their presence as latent as possible, writing:

“Television’s visual treatment of the event, one which actively calls for

spectatorial participation, while simultaneously trying to direct attention from

itself, to remain inconspicuous and unnoticed, as if it were simply ‘transporting’

us.” (p. 112)

While both Dayan and Katz do place their notion of ‘media events’ under a critical eye, they do not offer any space for contestation within said media event. Dayan and Katz (1992) write: “These broadcasts integrate societies in a collective heartbeat and evoke a renewal of loyalty to the society and its legitimate authority.” (p. 9)

Michel Foucault’s work on spectacle in Discipline & Punish is largely allegorical.

‘The Spectacle of the Scaffold’ is about public torture and execution in Seventeenth-

Century France. Though this direction seemingly offers little in relation to mass mediated spectacle in contemporary society, Foucault’s work offers insight into the power relations that exist between spectacle and audience. Foucault (1975) writes:

“Torture forms part of the ritual… It must mark the victim: it is intended, either

by the scar it leaves on the body, or by the spectacle that accompanies it, to brand

the victim with infamy… in any case, men will remember public execution, the

pillory, torture and pain duly observed.” (p. 34)

The value in the torture and execution during is in the symbolism of its public performance. The spectacle of the public torture has the effect of organizing that particular society around the rule of the ‘sovereign’. This is reinforced through the display of the body and through the Ritual participation in the tortures and executions by the audience. Foucault (1975) writes:

“Not only must people know, they must see with their own eyes. Because they

must be made to be afraid; but also because they too must be the witnesses, the

guarantors, of the punishment… The right to be witnesses was one they possessed

and claimed.” (p. 58)

To Foucault public tortures and executions are volatile spaces one where even though the entire spectacle is intended to maintain reverence for the sovereign, there remains space for contestation by values that fall outside those imposed by the sovereign.

He explains that the crowd for whom the spectacle of the torture or execution was arranged, would form collective actions of their own if they felt the sovereign, embodied by the executioner, had overstepped their bounds. The crowd, brought together,

31 emboldened, and excited into fervor by the spectacle, would revolt against the sovereign’s power within the spectacle of his construction. Foucault (1975) writes:

“The people, drawn to the spectacle intended to terrorize it, could express its

rejection of the punitive power and sometimes revolt. Preventing an execution

that was unjust… in any case abusing the judges and causing an uproar against the

sentence – all this formed part of the popular practices that invested, traversed and

often overturned the ritual of the public execution.” (p. 60)

In fact the spectacle of the public execution is one of the few places where the apparent divinely appointed sovereign’s word or will could be questioned. Foucault

(1975) writes:

“In these executions, which ought to show only the terrorizing power of the

prince, there was a whole aspect of the carnival, in which rules were inverted,

authority mocked and criminals transformed into heroes.” (61).

Foucault’s spectacle is a space where the will and word of those in charge can be contested publicly and collectively. In a reversal of the power within the spectacle, it can be used to satisfy the interests of the same audience it is intended to exert dominance over.

The notion of contestation within the spectacle is extended by Douglas Kellner, a contemporary spectacle theorist. Kellner’s work on spectacle differs from Debord in two key ways: Kellner looks at specific events or circumstances within the spectacle, and he attempts to find spaces within these events for contestation. Kellner (2003) prefers:

“To perceive a plurality and heterogeneity of contending spectacles in the

contemporary moment and to see spectacle itself as a contested terrain… showing

how they give rise to conflicting meanings and effects, and constitute a field of

domination and resistance.” (p. 11)

This allows the audience to move past the interpellative powers of the spectacle, around the false consciousness it constructs, and towards a praxis of media literacy. In this way Kellner preempts one of the main critiques of theories of spectacle: that no solutions are offered, merely gloomy assessments of modern society. Though Kellner does not deal specifically with hockey, he does a great deal of work surrounding the spectacle of modern professional sports. Kellner (2003) writes:

“In sports events fans become part of something larger than themselves, the

participation provides meaning and significance, and a higher sense of the

communal self, fused with the mulititude of believers and the spirit of joy in

triumph and suffering in tribulation.” (p. 69)

Myth

My theoretical framework is rooted in the theory of spectacle. But the relationship between Canadians and ice hockey runs much deeper than the mere spectacular mediation. The sport has a profoundly meaningful, mythic relationship with Canadian identity. Spectacle hijacks, shapes, and encourages this mythology in order to assist in the execution of its intentions. Myths are socially and culturally constructed and reinforced amalgamations or approximations of various historical discourses. They have been commandeered and shaped in order to possess, transfer, and validate certain value

33 systems symbolically. David Rowe, Jim McKay, and Toby Miller (1998) define myths as:

“Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Myths are not total delusions or utter

falsehoods, but partial truths that accentuate particular versions of reality and

marginalize or omit others in a manner appealing to deep-seated emotions.

Dominant myths depoliticize social relations by ignoring the vested interests

surrounding whose stories become ascendant in a given culture.” (p. 121)

Myths bring together groups by developing and maintaining common themes.

This makes them useful in gathering communities, but also leaves them vulnerable to the intentions of vested interests. At the very least, myths favour certain interests while marginalizing or ignoring others completely, concealing this from those who subscribe to them the whole time. But as these myths are shared, their power increases as the perception of their accuracy grows. Bart Beaty (2006) writes:

“It is in the process of telling and re-telling myths that they acquire cultural

currency and that they come to be regarded as cultural truths and stock cultural

knowledge that is transformed into narrative pleasure. “ (p. 121)

For the purposes of my thesis, the notion of myth will be based on Roland Barthes work Mythologies. To Barthes myths amalgamate history to give certain concepts or stories enhanced meaning. They privilege a certain way of telling and using these concepts or stories, while ignoring the interests and values behind them. Barthes (1957) writes:

“Myth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification… What

the world supplies to myth is an historical reality, defined, even if it goes back

quite a while, by the way in which men have produced or used it; and what myth

gives in return is a natural image of this reality.” (p. 142)

This natural image can shift and shape itself as necessary for suited messaging within specific discourse. That it is naturalized encourages its social and cultural reproduction, which only works to reinforce its naturalized position. To Barthes myths are systems where the signifier carries much more meaning than the signified appears to offer. The content of the myth carries much more symbolic weight than it appears to express. Barthes (1957) writes: “Any semiological system is a system of values; now the myth –consumer takes the signification for a system of facts: myth is read as a factual system, wheras it is a semiological system.” (p. 131) The ability of myth to adjust to specific circumstances means that there is no inherent truth to them, despite their inference of the complete opposite.

In Canada hockey has traditionally provided a means of cultural identification that has been heavily mythologized as having grown along with the nation. As a result it has been seen as the essence of Canada’s qualities and virtues. Jason Blake (2008) writes:

“The benefit of hockey to Canada is that it provides a quick fix, proving that we

exist in cultural terms and that there is a common element to this complicated

country. Like all myths, it offers the benefit of an easy story and explanation; like

all myths, it contains an aspect of falsehood; and like all myths, it allows for

contradiction and a wide range of interpretation.” (p. 169)

The mythic alignment of hockey and nation provides one of the few opportunities to embrace traditional notions of nationalism in a country that hasn’t often encouraged nor embraced traditional nationalism, perhaps unsure how to celebrate. Hockey mythology is adaptable to life across Canada from coast to coast; top to bottom. The mythic alignment between Canadian identity and hockey has been passed-on and reinforced for generations. But the iron-grasp hockey mythology possesses and exerts over Canadian identity ignores or overshadows many aspects of the relationship. Richard

Gruneau and David Whitson (1993) write:

“There is something to be said for the argument that hockey draws on and

dramatizes the Canadian experience with long winters, the cold, and large open s

paces… The problem arises when Canadians appreciation for hockey is mistaken

for ‘nature’ rather than something that is socially and culturally produced.” (p.

26)

One fundamental logical submission that Canadian hockey mythology demands

(and the spectacle encourages) is the suspension of the ‘participation gap’. Whether it be playing hockey on a pond, in a small community rink, a small-town minor-league arena, in front of thousands as a professional, or as an audience member watching any of these either live or on television, all are considered constitutive of and essential to Canadian hockey mythology. Most Canadians experience hockey watching on television and participating as audience. Differences and levels of distinction in the type of participation are mitigated through hockey mythology, making one no different from the other.

This furthers an increasingly co-dependant relationship between myth and spectacle. Since the broadcast of hockey on television offers a greater opportunity for participation as audience than exists in the actually playing of hockey (especially NHL hockey), it is in the interests of both spectacle and Canadian hockey mythology to perpetuate each other. Beaty (2006) writes:

“The ideological articulation of unity found in the operation of sport broadcasting,

coupled with the desire to produce an entertaining spectacle for national

consumption, has elevated Canadian hockey broadcasters to a prominent role in

the construction of a largely mythical national unity. “ (p. 114)

Spectacle and myth share a symbiotic relationship. Though spectacle may be the predominant force, it is reliant on myth and ritual to organize society around its logic while seemingly remaining innocuous. In Canada the spectacle of professional hockey on television aligns traditional mythology surrounding hockey with Canadian identity. This is sustained and encouraged through the ritual practices and performances of spectatorship. The spectacle of professional hockey is not merely a profit-driven cultural industry promoting the consumption of sport, nor the worldview surrounding sport. The spectacle annexes the mythological alignment between hockey and Canadian national identity, using it to organize Canadian society and notions of Canadian identity. Finally the ritualization of the viewing process for the television audience aligns all forms of participation. In doing so the relationship between spectacle and Canadian mythology is affirmed and bolstered.

Spectacle and Sport

Of all the work done applying notions of spectacle to sport in contemporary society, ice hockey has previously escaped this particular lens. There are no studies that critique the role of spectacular mediation in professional ice hockey on Canadian television. As a result, this portion of the literature review will focus on established scholarship surrounding spectacle and other sports.

In his work ‘Media, Sports, and Society: The Research Agenda’, Lawrence

Wenner provides an overview of the limited tradition of sports media scholarship, criticizing the discipline for marginalizing the place and importance surrounding mediasport in society. To Wenner, sport spectacle is a site that offers the potential for contestation by differing values and interests. Wenner (1989) writes: “Even within mediated sports content, there may be ‘competing’ events being reported in different events.” (p. 42)

Umberto Eco offered a conception of sport as marginalized within discourse about itself within the spectacle. In his book Travels in Hyper Reality, Eco referred to the self-reflexive discussion surrounding sport as “sport cubed” (1986). According to Eco, sport is shifted through its repositioning as performance with the adjoining spectacle, it becomes “sport squared” (1986). The result of sport squared is an on-going discourse surrounding the sport that is only minimally shaped or affected by the result of the competition. Instead the focus is on occurrences or phenomena within the sports spectacle that are created, framed, mediated by the spectacle and for the spectacle. To

Eco (1986) sport squared:

“Generates a sport cubed, the discussion of sport as something seen… The

discussion on the sport press is discourse on a discourse about watching others’

sport as discourse. Present-day sports, then, is essentially a discussion of the

sports press. At several removes there remains the actual sport, which might as

well not even exist.” (p. 162)

The observation of sports as a site of spectacular contestation is one shared by

David Rowe, Jim McKay, and Toby Miller in: ‘Come Together: Sport, Nationalism, and the Media Image’. The article tackles the myth-creation the media provides sport, and how this contributes to the process of nation-making. Using soccer in Australia as a case study, Rowe, McKay and Miller examine the ambiguity between what the spectacle promises in terms of national mythology, namely a unified symbol for nationhood, and the groups it excludes in reality. They conclude that this ambiguity opens up spaces of contestation. Miller, McKay, and Miller (1998) write:

“Because nationalist ideology is deeply contradictory… it is also necessarily

unstable, offering also the possibility of generating new alignments and throwing

into stark relief older but partially obscured hierarchical structures.“ (p. 133)

Douglas Kellner, as mentioned earlier, adapted Debord’s notion of spectacle to contemporary society and applied it to specific instances or phenomena of current mass media. Sports is one area Kellner (2003) feels is fertile for analysis, writing:

“Spectator sports involve passive consumption of images of the sports spectacle,

which mobilizes spectator energies into a deification of players and teams and a

celebration of the values of competition and success in a reproduction of the

capitalist work ethic.” (p. 65)

Sports in contemporary media symbolically reinforce societies dominant values.

The logic of the spectacle promotes a hypervaluation of the role of both the sport and those who participate in it. To Kellner, Michael Jordan represents the most ‘deified’ phenomena within sporting discourse. Jordan’s iconic stature was attributed to his successful embodiment of the capitalist work ethic, building his legend through a mythical motivation and drive for success that was coupled with unrivaled on-court achievement. In his piece entitled: ‘The sports spectacle, Michael Jordan, and Nike’,

Kellner examines the contradictory messaging in the spectacularly constructed Jordan icon using many of his media campaigns as case studies. While concluding that Jordan has indeed reached a sort of mythical iconography due to his alignment with contemporary American values, Kellner’s findings are more focused on conflicts between racial representation and the commercialization of sport.

Ambiguity in sports mythology is the subject of D. Stanley Eitzen’s: Fair and

Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport. Eitzen places common mythology associated with sports at dialectical polemics, examining phenomena including the paradoxes between the promotion of unity and reality of division in sport, and the private ownership of teams framed as public property. By deconstructing prevailing myths surrounding sport, Eitzen highlights the contradictions that prevail in conceptions of contemporary sport.

In his work ‘MediaSport: Technology and the Commodification of Postmodern

Sport’, Michael Real emphasizes the role the televised sports spectacle plays in contemporary society. Real (1988) writes:

“Ignoring MediaSport today would be like ignoring the role of church in the

middle ages or of ignoring art in the Renaissance; large parts of society are

immersed in media sports today and virtually no aspect of life is untouched by it.”

(p. 15)

Real compares sport spectatorship to the notion of ‘deep play’ Clifford Geertz explores in his writings on the Balinese cockfight. He determines that mass-media and sport share a symbiotic relationship that through rituals of viewership and participation, become representative of larger meanings.

The role of sport as a symbol of nationhood is explored by Alan Tomlinson in his piece: ‘Olympic Spectacle: Opening Ceremonies and Some Paradoxes of Globalization.’

Through his examination of the opening ceremonies of Olympic Games from 1984 to

1992, Tomlinson argues that each host nation uses the Olympic Games as a symbolic means to assert their national identity to the rest of the world. Despite its focus on the projection of symbolic national identity globally, Tomlinson (1996) concludes that:

“Symbolic spectacle positions the nation as a player on the global stage; but national pride and local history are the real stuff of affiliation and ‘belongingness’. (p. 600)

In ‘Making Spectacle: A Case Study in Television Sports Production’, Richard

Gruneau examines production processes used in CBC sports programming. His approach provides a perspective on televised sports programs that doesn’t focus on games as texts.

To Gruneau (1989): “This textual perspective has tended to downplay analysis of the political and economic limits and pressures that operate as context for television sports production.” (p. 135) Gruneau concludes that the focus on creating an entertaining product for the audience takes precedence over ideological considerations.

Hockey – Mythic Traditions and Criticisms

For the purposes of this thesis hockey literature will be thematically grouped into two somewhat opposing bodies of work: those that celebrate traditional Canadian hockey mythology, and those that criticize it.

Beginning with scholarship that honours and acclaims Canadian hockey mythology, one work stands out from a scholar whose work on myth this thesis is partially built upon. In 1961 Roland Barthes was commissioned by Hubert Aquin, a

Quebecois writer and film producer for the National Film Board of Canada, to write the script for a documentary on national sports. Entitled Les Sport et les Hommes, Barthes wrote about five national sports including hockey. Completely unfamiliar with hockey,

Barthes was flown to Montreal for about two weeks in early 1961 where he was shown a series of recorded games on television, his first experience with the sport. (MacKenzie,

1997) Perhaps because his trip to Canada occurred during winter, Barthes was overwhelmed by the symbolic alignment between sport and nation. Barthes (1961) writes:

“What is a national sport? It is a sport that rises out of the substance of a nation,

out of its soil and climate. To play hockey is constantly to repeat that men have

transformed motionless winter, the hard earth, and suspended life, and that

precisely out of all this they have made a swift, vigorous, passionate sport.” (pp.

45-47)

To Barthes hockey is a truly authentic national sport, one that celebrates the people by highlighting the features of the land. Every aspect of hockey is representative of Canada to Barthes. He even understands fighting within the sport as constitutive of national identity. Barthes (1961) writes:

“The children seem to be fighting, but they are merely learning to inhabit their

country, and what the mothers’ eyes follow in their progeny’s first adult gestures is not so much the outcome of a battle as the development of an initiation. (p. 47)

Hockey then to Barthes is not only a means of identifying onesself as Canadian, but of becoming Canadian, and of performing Canadianness.

Jason Blake undertakes a comprehensive overview of Canadian-written, English- language hockey fiction in Canadian Hockey Literature. It is a thematically organized account and exploration of traditional elements of hockey mythology. Though this exploration involves illuminating the ambiguity within the mythology, it is an account of the celebration of Canadian hockey mythology nonetheless. According to Blake (2008):

“Like sports, fiction is a key moulder of identity and community.” (p. 12) Through 2008,

Blake identifies most of the key works in Canadian hockey fiction and explores the construction of a mythic alignment between sport and country. Blake (2008) writes: “The benefit of hockey to Canada is that it provides a quick fix, proving that we exist in cultural terms and that there is a common element to this complicated country.” (p. 169)

Blake also explores the traditional role fighting has played in Canadian hockey mythology, where it is not only justified, but considered integral to the game, despite having no tangible benefit on the outcome. Blake (2008) writes:

“This striking red on white evokes the Canadian flag and at the same time implies

that hockey is a modern-day bloodsport because the bloodshed is not incidental,

but expected, accepted, and encouraged.” (p. 86).

Fighting is illegal in international ice hockey, in women’s ice hockey, and in almost every professional ice hockey league throughout the world with the exception of the NHL. But the combination of skill and aggression the sport offers remains an essential component of Canadian hockey mythology. Though Canadian identity is typically hardly associated with aggression, the emphasis on fighting in discourse surrounding Canadian hockey links directly to the notion of nationhood. As Blake (2008) writes: “Allegedly, Canadian hockey players are born with this manliness – epitomized by an attraction to aggressive pain and play, wheras Europeans have to develop it.” (p.

83)

Doug Beardsley’s Country on Ice is another exaltation of the traditional mythic alignment between hockey and Canada. Beardsley’s work highlights the established alignment between the pond, the community arena, the small-town team, and the professional game within Canadian mythology. That the relationship between Canadian identity and hockey is purely mythic is the point for Beardsley, who praises the alignment between the two. Beardsley (1987) writes:

“Hockey has created our history too… for a few hours each week, [Canadians]

enter into a mythical world beyond their day-to-day reality. Hockey began here, in

the mythic. As a result, what can be said mythically about the game applies to us,

our culture, and our country.” (p. 36)

A celebration of the role of hockey mythology in contemporary society comes from Kelly Hewson in her piece: ‘You Said You Didn’t Give a Fuck About Hockey:

Popular Culture, the Fastest Game on Earth, and the Imagined Canadian Nation.’ Hewson sees the adaptable nature of Canadian hockey mythology as having two resulting effects.

It appeals to a large portion of the nation and has the ability to reshape itself as necessary.

This makes hockey a site for the re-negotiation of Canadian identity. Hewson (2009) writes:

“Ice hockey is not necessarily anchored in any national trait and so captures

many, and it is this flexibility that allows hockey to signify the equally flexible

nationalism… rather than confining experience, it adapts itself to the conditions of

the experience in which it is said to be found.” (p. 195-196)

To Hewson the adaptability of hockey mythology is uniquely Canadian, metonymical of Canadian identity.

In ‘Between a Puck and a showpiece: Spectator Sport and the Differing

Responses to Hockey (and its Absence) in Canada and the United States - A Canadian

Poet Looks at the Fate of the Game’, Richard Harrison explores Canadian hockey mythology through the context of modern media. While establishing the mythic role hockey plays in Canadian identity, Harrison explores the transition of the sport into

45 televised spectacle. Though Harrison’s definition of spectacle is more conventional than the theoretical notion at the foundation of this thesis, he notes the role of fighting in creating hockey as a distinctively Canadian spectacle.

Daniel Francis laments what he perceives as the end of Canadian hockey mythology in National Dreams: Myth Memory and Canadian History. Francis attributes the traditional alignment between nation and sport to a series of factors. These include:

Canada’s claim to its invention, a climate and landscape that supports the game, and a more digestible version of Canadian history than the seemingly mundane political/economic version. To Francis (1997) the commercialization and

Americanization of the game: “In order to attract an audience which is ignorant of its’ grace, subtlety, and history… the natural connection between hockey and North is being severed” (pp. 168-169). This along with the increased development and success of non-

Canadian players to Francis is destroying traditional Canadian hockey mythology.

Despite the eloquence that typically accompanies justifications of the mythic alignment between sport and nation, the fact remains that it is not universally encompassing or representative of the Canadian experience. The prevalence of hockey mythology, though revered and reified in many corners, has also sparked a body of critical literature. These works intend to de-mistify different aspects of hockey’s firmly entrenched role in Canadian culture. The most common source of criticism revolves around the exclusion and marginalization of different groups of people in traditional hockey mythology. Exclusion and marginalization is only compounded within the spectacle, as it continually exploits hockey mythology to assist in its imposition on

Canadian society.

The workk most frequently seen as fundamental to hockey scholarship is Hockey

Night in Canada: Sports, Identities and Cultural Politics by Richard Gruneau and David

Whitson. Their book provides a detailed political economic history of the game and its role in Canadian society: from the development of the modern game, to its commodification as a professional venture, to the battle between competing professional leagues, through to the emergence of the NHL. They also explore the NHL’s association with the CBC, and the predominant role hockey has developed within Canadian culture as a result.

While Gruneau and Whitson frame the mythology of hockey in Canada as a common space for all Canadians, they point out that the reality marginalizes many groups incluiding: women, minorities, and those of lower socio-economic status. Gruneau and

Whitson (1993) write:

“This discourse of nature creates a kind of cultural amnesia about the social

struggles and vested interests – men, women, classes, regions, races, and ethic

groups – that have always been part of hockey history.” (p. 132)

Here Gruneau and Whitson identify one large group that is almost conventionally ignored within hockey mythology – women. Despite their consistent exclusion, the role of women is essential to understanding the role hockey plays in negotiating Canadian identity.

Mary Louise Adams inquires into the role of gender in her work: ‘The Game of

Whose Lives? Gender, Race, and Entitlement in Canada’s “National” Game.’ The piece criticizes the disparity in national media coverage following the 2002 Salt Lake City

Olympics where both the men’s and the women’s hockey teams won Gold medals, but the focus remained almost exclusively on the men’s team. Adams further de-mystifies the role of women in Canadian hockey mythology through two of its most sacred spaces, the community rink and the shinny pond. Adams (2006) concludes: “The use of hockey references as a cultural shorthand for Canadianness helps to perpetuate a national identity rooted in masculine experience.” (p. 76)

In her ethnographic study of women’s shinny in Toronto, Anne Hartman explored the experiences of women who took part in hockey at its most mythically-exploited level.

The shinny game is supposed to be the ultimate site of hockey inclusion, where anyone with skates and a stick, regardless of size, skill, age, or gender is welcome to participate.

But based on her experiences and those of the women she interviewed for ‘Here for a

Little Pickup: Note of Shinny Hockey in Toronto Public Parks’, this was not always the case. Hartman (2009) found that:

“Women’s shinny games… are deeply ambivalent, shaped by struggles over

access and resources, full of mixed feelings and degrees of complicity and

resistance. “ (p. 125)

Though shinny provided common ground for women to enjoy the game on terms undetermined by patriarchy, there remained imposition, resistance, and exclusion by men.

This resistance challenged the women’s ability to find a space within traditional Canadian hockey mythology.

The opposite side of the marginalization of many groups within the spectacle is an overt celebration of traditional, often patriarchal masculinity. Professional hockey is

48 almost exclusively the space of men. This is reinforced through the spectacle and is inherent in Canadian hockey mythology. Gruneau and Whitson (1993) write:

“Like other aspects of “common-sense” understandings of the game, hockey’s

masculine traditions have a mythic and ideological character. In hockey the

existing gender order is made to appear “natural”, rather than something that has

been socially and historically constructed and thereby open to change.” (p. 196)

The continued reinforcement of this socially and historically constructed order occurs under forces of contestation in everyday life, as the role and importance of masculinity and physicality have lost prominence in a society seemingly continually moving away from them. To offset this, the hockey spectacle provides a reliable space of overt, traditional masculinity. Gruenau and Whitson (1993) write:

“Hockey’s status as a man’s game in Canada has been partly due to the fact that

the game continues to be one of the few areas of life where hardness and overt

physical intimidation are still allowed to count.” (p. 192)

In terms of the sport, this celebration of masculinity also leads to a celebration and encouragement of physical aggression, intimidation, and violence. Gruneau and

Whitson devote a chapter to the element of hockey often considered the most controversial, and the most ‘Canadian’ of the game: the omnipresent role physical violence plays in hockey. Violence has become so ingrained into Canadian hockey mythology that it is taught from a young age as strategy. Gruneau and Whitson (1993) write:

“Violence tolerated until it became customary in hockey has ultimately led to

violence as a tactic in hockey, which has placed significant demands on everyone

who wants to play the game.” (p.184)

The integration and prioritization of aggressive, violent play have been reified in

Canadian hockey mythology. The notion of the use of physicality, even to the extent of violence, in order to gain a competitive advantage, is encouraged through a lack of discouragement. Gruneau and Whitson (1993) write:

“In its practice of tacitly supporting minimal intervention, hockey’s establishment

influences results just as surely as it would by calling for a more vigorous

enforcement of the rules of play.” (p. 183)

To define the opposing sides of the hockey violence debate, Gruneau and Whitson employ two iconic members of Canadian hockey mythology, Wayne Gretzky and Don

Cherry. Largely considered the greatest Canadian player in the history of the game,

Gretzky changed his stance on fighting during his time playing professionally in the

United States. According to Gruneau and Whitson (1993) Gretzky felt that fighting and violence in hockey overshadowed every other aspect of the game for Americans, inherently limiting its audience and potential for growth. Cherry on the other hand is the self-appointed voice of traditional Canadian hockey, with its priority on aggressive play, including fighting.

Jason Blake (2008) articulates the position held by the ‘Cherry’ side of the argument, explaining that typically in Canadian hockey literature:

“Violence does ‘not count’ because it occurs on the ice; fighting is a necessary

means of catharsis that preempts more serious attacks; fighting is regulated and

therefore controlled violence, lastly, there is the denial of violence through

linguistic means such as euphemism or often humorous understatement.” (p. 79)

Justification through catharsis, the use of some violence in lieu of more, excessive, eventual violence as both an explanation and excuse is the most common.

Jennings Bryant, Dolf Zillmann and Arthur A. Raney offer another, supplemental explanation for violence in sport. To Bryant, Zillman, and Raney the use of violence sets and holds a standard of excellence in sport. In their work ‘Violence and the Enjoyment of

Media Sports’ they assert that violence represents peak performance. Bryant, Zillman, and Raney (1998) write:

“Intensely physical risky, especially violent play stands for human conflict at its

peak, and intense conflict is the heart and soul of high drama… therefore violence

has utility not only for its own sake, but because it is the perfect symbol that the

athletes are giving everything they’ve got for the contest, and, of course, for the

spectator.” (p. 260)

Violence then reifies the role of spectator, reminding the audience that the spectacle is for their benefit. This could especially be seen as the case for fighting in hockey, as it has no tangible, measurable benefit on the outcome of the game.

The role of Cherry as a cultural symbol was explored in: ‘The Prime Minister of

Saturday Night: Don Cherry, The CBC, and the Cultural Production of Intolerance’. In the piece James Gillett, Phillip White, and Kevin Young explore the role of Don Cherry

51 in Canadian hockey discourse. Cherry is the flamboyant, controversial host of a program called ‘Coaches Corner’, which airs during the first intermission of the featured game on

Hockey Night in Canada. A former player and coach, Cherry is a spectacular personification of traditional Canadian hockey mythology. His commentary typically glorifies the established conventions of the alignment between game and nation, while also castigating anything within Canadian hockey discourse that may come into conflict with his ideals. Gillett, White, and Young (1996) write:

“Cherry paints a portrait of the relationship between hockey and Canadian

identity that is based on exclusion and dominance. Advocacy of toughness and

violence in hockey is not only gendered, but reflects and reproduces a definition

of masculinity that requires dominance of others, and discourages many men and

women from participating.” (p. 67)

In Don Cherry, traditions of Canadian hockey mythology find both a symbol and an advocate. Cherry’s version of Canadian nationalism is based in hockey. This firm association is rooted in a fervent ethnocentrism, a fear and loathing of anyone playing the game that did not completely assimilate into his conception of how it is intended to be played. And Cherry’s conception of how the game is intended to be played is based in violence and aggression as much as skill and effort. Cherry is a fervent supporter of fighting as an essential component of the both the sport and character of Canadian hockey. In discussing Cherry’s position on fighting, the authors demystify a classic tent of hockey mythology, the justification of fighting as a form of catharsis. Gillett, White, and Young (1996) write: “Hockey violence is essentially a learned phenomenon and that

52 continued reference to catharsis theory is part of the rationalizing the retention of fighting as ‘part of the game.’ (p. 68)

This study contributes to the body of literature surrounding hockey and Canada by using spectacle as the key theoretical framework. The unique role hockey plays in the development and maintenance of Canadian identity within the spectacle allows this thesis to also offer new insights into the role spectacle plays in contemporary society.

CHAPTER THREE: CASE STUDY – TSN

On Wednesday March 2, 2011, the game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins was broadcast ‘live’ on The Sports Network’s (TSN)

‘Wednesday Night Hockey’. As opposed to the CBC, which is partially state-funded and carries the longstanding mandate of developing and maintaining Canadian culture, TSN is solely a profit-driven enterprise. As such it positions itself as a purveyor of hockey as a cultural industry. The broadcast revolved almost completely around the commodified aspects of the game.

The TSN text is framed in a fundamentally different way from its CBC counterpart. There is little to no emphasis on the pond, children’s shinny, or any of the other idealized archetypes of Canadian hockey mythology. Instead the entire broadcast promotes commercial ideals and the further consumption of the NHL product.

There are various Canadian corporate sponsors during differing segments of the broadcast, as well as typical stoppages in play for advertisements. There is frequent promotion of other future TSN broadcasts, both of NHL hockey and other sports. This type of overt commercial exploitation is common with any televised sporting event.

Within the spectacle there are paltry attempts at an alignment with Canadian identity, as well as a brief moment of contestation within the discourse surrounding masculinity in the game.

The Sports Network (TSN) was established in 1984 as Canada’s first 24-hour, all- sports channel. Owned by Bell Canada Enterprises, since 1987 TSN has shared the rights

54 to broadcast NHL games with CBC. And though Hockey Night in Canada continues to possess a monopoly on Saturdays in Canada, TSN provides coverage throughout the rest of the week.

Hockey Cubed

One way in which TSN attempts to offer spectacular enhancement is through the creation of the perception of closed space between audience and event. Gord Miller provides play-by-play announcing from the typical vantage point of the broadcast booth, situated high above ice-level. Pierre McGuire provides his colour commentary from ice- level, in between the two benches, on the players-side of the plexiglass. From there

McGuire provides unique in-game insight based on things he hears and sees in the midst of the game action. Note that CBC positions one of their commentators, Glenn Healy, in a similar position for Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts. But as opposed to McGuire,

Healy’s positioning is rarely imposed on the spectacle. McGuire’s access transcends the game itself to benefit the broadcast. He interviews Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan

Bylsma during a stoppage in play in the first period, and speaks with Joffery Lupul off- camera about a potential injury he sustained a moment earlier on the ice. This gives the audience an almost real-time update on his status. At one point in the third period,

McGuire tells of players on the Pittsburgh bench chiding leafs Mike Brown for attempting to draw a Pittsburgh penalty by falling and simulating being tripped. “They’re saying: ‘Embarrassing Brown’” tells McGuire.

With an established pedigree as a Stanley Cup winning assistant coach, McGuire plays the role of coach-critic for the audience. His physical positioning in conjunction

55 with his established reputation as a Stanley Cup winning assistant-coach allows him the same perspective as the coaches. But with no vested interest in the outcome he is able to gauge the performance of both teams with seeming objectivity. This creates the perception of the provision of a deeper level of interpretation of game-action for the audience, and therefore a closer and more authentic relationship with the game. Both the increased perception of authenticity and the closer proximity to the action work to further allure the audience into the spectacle. The broadcast appears more reputable while also encouraging audience reliance on the innovations.

The key encouragement of hockey as a cultural industry occurs through the constant self-referential nature of the discourse surrounding NHL hockey throughout the game. The on-going discussion of the professional hockey spectacle becomes the realization of the broadcast as a space Debord (1967) describes writing: “The commodity contemplates itself in a world of its’ own making.” (thesis 53)

Umberto Eco applied the phenomena noted above to the world of professional sport. To Eco the discussion of the performance of sport encouraged discussion surrounding the discussion of sport. This created an endlessly self- referential phenomena he referred to as: “sport cubed.” The game itself is overwhelmed and marginalized by the spectacle of sport cubed. The self-reflexivity of the professional sports spectacle is rooted in a symbiotic relationship between the sports entity and its broadcaster, in this case the

NHL and TSN. By constantly framing hockey discourse around the NHL and more so its own coverage of the NHL, TSN establishes itself as the source of and platform for the discourse. The world of professional hockey on TSN is constantly (re)constructed by

(re)creating a knowledge base that it supplies for itself. For the purposes of this case

56 study and the following one, the notion of sport cubed applied to the professional hockey spectacle will be referred to as ‘hockey cubed’.

A major part of the diagesis of the TSN broadcast focuses on the current goings on in the league; the top stories from around the NHL. These often involve discourse outside of the Toronto/Pittsburgh game. Discussion veers away from game action and into discussion about playoff races, trades and their effects, injuries on both of the two teams in action, as well as a number of other teams.

A typical subject of discussion throughout the game is the injury of Canadian superstar Sydney Crosby, who plays professionally for the Penguins. The following comment by Miller is typical of the on-going discussion about Crosby: “So the Sydney

Crosby watch continues, and you talk to Pittsburgh players today Pierre, and you really don’t get the impression they’ve given up on him playing again this year.”

Here Miller is beginning a discussion recounting a discussion surrounding an injury. The team’s performance in game action is marginalized behind the spectacular promise of Crosby’s return. Though the team’s goal is on-ice success, the spectacle’s goal is the return of one of its key draws. We see this prioritization in Miller’s comments.

Due to the game’s timing in the final portion of the season, the approaching Stanley Cup playoffs made up a significant portion of the self-referential discussion that went outside the game narrative. One example occurs during a preview of an upcoming game. Miller mentions the New York Rangers: “Who are suddenly in danger of missing the playoffs.”

Pierre McGuire responds: “That was a big loss on home ice to Buffalo, one of the teams chasing them last night. Huge loss.”

Another example occurs following an in-game highlight from elsewhere in the

NHL. Miller said: “Well the Islanders aren’t a factor for a spot [in the Stanley Cup

Playoffs], but they kind of are a factor in the eastern conference races as they have as many games against the Canadiens as anyone.”

In both instances other moments in the professional hockey spectacle are highlighted through their imposition within the current spectacular moment. This is the encouragement of more discussion surrounding, and consumption of, more professional hockey spectacle.

The self-referential focus of the broadcast becomes only magnified during the intermission, which features opinions and analyses by: moderator James Duthie, journalist/commentator Bob McKenzie, former NHL player turned commentator Ray

Ferraro, and former NHL player and coach turned commentator Craig McTavish. Duthie begins the panel discussion, which is formatted as a multiple-choice quiz for each commentator to answer. It is described it as the: “First post-TradeCentre Quiz”.

‘TradeCentre’ was TSN’s broadcast of commentary on the day of the NHL trade deadline. The trade deadline is the final day to exchange players from one roster to the next for that particular season. But the principles of hockey cubed as perpetuated by TSN have created a spectacular discourse around the exchange of players as having significant impact on the team’s fortunes. The discussion typically surrounds what players to contending teams should add in order to perform even better. Teams not contending are expected to provide contending teams with players in return for younger players, future players in the form of draft picks, and/or financial relief. Duthie’s comments frame this broadcast as the focus of the subsequent discussion. The discussion is then in reference to

58 a previous discussion about events that usually have a minimal impact the ongoing performance of a 25-person team. This type of hockey discourse, the spectacular imposition of the trade deadline as a constructed event, has no space in traditional hockey mythology. It is created by the spectacle for the spectacle. Idle chatter within hockey cubed that reaffirms the assembled world of the NHL spectacle.

Player Commodification within Hockey Cubed

TSN’s promotion of hockey cubed encourages the intense commodification of players. Discourse surrounding various players’ stature, potential, pedigree, history, injury status, who they were traded for, etc… are all reflective of their position as commodities. An example occurs in the third period as there is extensive discussion surrounding the trade made a year earlier by the Maple Leafs for star scorer Phil Kessel.

The commentators provide valuations of Kessel’s statistical performance to date for the

Maple Leafs. Miller and McGuire opine on the Maple Leafs’ motivations behind this exchange in commodities. They weigh the benefits of Kessel’s present-day performance against the potential statistical aggregation of the draft picks and prospects the Maple

Leafs gave up in return for him.

Statistical analysis involving individual player’s performances are used as measures which are intended to classify and compare players. The game outside the game, as created by and reported on through hockey cubed, is especially celebrated on days like the trade deadline. It is an economy where the exchange of players produces spectacular punditry based on their potential achievement. Players are reduced to numbers; categorized, measured, and compared through statistics. This practice

59 marginalizes every other contribution as an intangible. A more wholly accurate portrayal of a player’s contribution to his team is marginalized in favour of scientifically measureable expectations. The basis for these expectations are established and relayed through the spectacle by those anointed by the spectacle as possessing a superior understanding of the game.

In ‘Sporting Spectacles: The Body Visible’, John Fiske proposes the argument that statistics in sports provide a means for the audience to assume a perceived control over the spectacle. Fiske (1993) writes: “One reason for the popularity of sport as a spectator activity is its ability to slip the power-knowledge mechanism of the workaday world into reverse gear.” (p. 82) To Fiske sports spectatorship is a “reversed panopticon”.

It offsets the impositions of the conditions of work in industrialized society by offering an opportunity to do the same to others at a distance. Fiske (1993) writes:

“The fan who, in the workplace, is monitored and totally known, in sport turns the

tables and becomes the monitor… they know the players and the play as

completely as, at work, they are known.” (p. 84)

Knowledge of the statistics and an understanding of their meaning allows the audience to possesses a body of knowledge that encourages participation in hockey cubed discourse, even from a distance. The audience can provide their own valuations of player performances and compare their valuations to those provided by the commentators. This draws the audience even deeper into the spectacle.

Besides providing the basis for hockey cubed discourses, statistical measurement also attempts to enhance the game action by providing the semblance of closed proximity

60 through the provision of invented information. Statistics display the value of the commodity-player, those with high value are reified, deemed ‘stars’. In the celebration of sport stars, the capitalist ethic of individual success is reaffirmed. Perhaps this is why

TSN focuses almost solely on two groups of players: star players, and Canadian star players. Pramod K. Nayar (2009) writes:

“Spectacle is what makes certain people desirable, objects of fantasy and

emulation. In short, spectacle is what renders the celebrity a celebrity, and all

celebrities perform within the space of the spectacle.” (p. 69)

For the Penguins discussion about players that occurs outside the game action almost exclusively focuses on their top Canadian players, primarily Kris Letang, Jordan

Stall, and Marc Andre Fleury. Alex Kovalev, an aging star from Russia is also discussed sporadically. Other than those few, outside of announcing a player’s on-ice action, there was no mention of any other active Penguin player. This does not include the notable exception of the injured Sydney Crosby. There is a great deal of discussion surrounding

Crosby at various points throughout the game. Crosby is a star player for the Pittsburgh

Penguins and the Canadian men’s Olympic team. His achievements include leading the

Penguins to the Stanley Cup, winning the Most Valuable Player award, and scoring the

Gold-Medal capturing goal in the 2010 men’s Olympic tournament. Crosby is widely considered Canada’s top hockey player, the best in a generation or two. He certainly receives treatment commensurate with this distinction within the spectacle. The topic of

Crosby’s return from severe post-concussion syndrome is broached repeatedly throughout the broadcast. Its engagement is further evidence of the intense

61 commodification that players are subjected to. The pre-game broadcast features the following exchange:

Duthie: “And the math starts to get dicey now for Sydney Crosby less than six

weeks away from the end of the regular season”

McKenzie: “For the amount of time he’s been out, which is now two months, he’s

going to need at least 2-3 weeks of rehab, and he’s not close to returning right

now, so it’s getting dicey for the regular season.”

Despite the severe nature of Crosby’s injury, the discourse surrounding him is limited to expectations of performance. The health ramifications that are currently debilitating Crosby the human being are marginalized. The conversations are framed around getting the player healthy enough to perform for the team.

An interesting dynamic occurs with the Maple Leafs, where the top, ‘star’ players are all from non-Canadian countries. The spectacle is obliged to focus on star players. As a result Canadian players like Dion Phaneuf and James Reimer received minimal coverage, while American Phil Kessel, and Russians Mikhail Grebowsk, and Nikolai

Kulemin received the majority of attention outside of the on-ice action. The reified commodity of star power took precedence in this instance over nationalism within the

TSN spectacle.

The final question of the quiz segment involves penalty shot goals by Linus

Omark of the Edmonton Oilers. Two goals are from NHL performances. The third is a notorious goal scored when Omark was a member of the Swedish national team playing against the Swiss. McTavish, the commentator with the most established reputation as a

62 player, coach, and Stanley Cup champion, uses the moment to re-assert the dominance of the self-referential world of NHL hockey. McTavish comments: “If it doesn’t happen in the NHL I’m discounting it. If it doesn’t happen on the biggest stage I’m discounting it.”

The notion of hockey as universal is dispelled by one of its spectacular gatekeepers as McTavish marginalizes both international and non-professional hockey.

This maintains the self-reflexive nature of the NHL hockey spectacle, which dispels all non-commodified versions of the game unless convenient.

Consuming Nationalism

One space the NHL spectacle finds occasionally convenient to exploit as part of its consumerist ethic is the notion of Canadian nationalism. Within the TSN broadcast notions of nationalism are engaged only as a function of their positioning as a cultural industry. The encouragement of nationalism and any attempted alignment with traditional

Canadian hockey mythology is minimal. Appeals to nationalism appear to merely be adjuncts incorporated into the spectacle in a meager attempt to anchor the broadcast around traditional Canadian hockey discourse.

The diagetic portion of the text offers little outside of the reinforcement of the capitalist and consumerist ethic attributed to traditional cultural industries. As such, the broadcast offers few examples of engagement with notions of nationalism. The broadcast’s primary attempt at aligning itself with traditional associations between hockey and Canada occurs through the use of the traditional Hockey Night in Canada theme song. The instrumental number entitled: ‘The Hockey Theme’, was composed by

Dolores Claman in 1968. In 2008 following failed negotiations with the CBC, the rights

63 to the song were sold to TSN, who now use it in the introduction, during intermissions, and for promotional montages. Through four decades as the theme for the only, then the primary national hockey broadcast, the song became firmly entrenched as an aural signifier for Canadian hockey. The CBC’s roles in constructing and maintaining

Canadian identity through the broadcast of NHL hockey placed this song at the forefront of the spectacle. It has become aligned with Canadian hockey mythology over generations.

TSN’s use of the song suggests their understanding of the long-standing role the professional hockey spectacle plays in Canadian identity. The song is a portion of the spectacle which has established itself within Canadian hockey mythology, and therefore also as a portion of Canadian identity. The use of the song provides TSN with the semblance of authenticity and ‘Canadianness.’

Assertions of Canadian Superiority

Exploitation of elements of traditional Canadian hockey mythology also occurs through assertions of Canadian superiority. The broadcast concentrates on the Maple

Leafs, the Canadian team, almost to the complete exclusion of their opponents, an

American team. Commentary outside of game action with few exceptions concerns

Maple Leaf players, occurrences, and phenomena. Goals by the Penguins are framed as the Maple Leafs’ failures. The treatment of the Canadian team as the ‘home’ team for a national broadcast is typical, and carries characteristic associations of nationalism. Aside from this contextual framing of the narrative, the assertions of Canadian dominance throughout the broadcast were slightly subtler. An example occurred during the pre-game

64 discussion by the panel about the possibility of the Maple Leafs qualifying for the Stanley

Cup Playoffs. Craig McTavish made the following comments about Maple Leafs player

Phil Kessel:

“Phil Kessel is playing much more inspired hockey, he’s going to the net, he’s

putting backside pressure on. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that it’s arrived at

the same time Joffery Lupul did. And I think what Lupul’s done for Phil Kessel is

really shown him some him some inspired play. Lupul’s doing a lot of the grunt

work, he’s in there quick, he’s doing things a bit outside his comfort zone and I

think that’s inspired Kessel, and his plays improved because of it. ”

McTavish states that Kessel, an American player, was not playing up to his ascribed potential until a Canadian player, Joffery Lupul, became a member of the Maple

Leafs. In doing so McTavish re-establishes a long-held assertion of Canadian hockey mythology; that the climate makes Canadian players tougher. The unique Canadian natural environment is considered the foundation for hockey. Only those who developed their skills under the typically harsh winter conditions boast the immeasurable attributes required to excel at the game. Those born elsewhere cannot ever possess these qualities.

Instead they can merely hope to play alongside Canadians who will either compensate for their inherent deficiencies, or inspire them to perform to such high levels of achievement as to have their play described as ‘Canadian’.

At the same time McTavish is asserting that a Canadian player is responsible for the improved play of an American player, he is also reaffirming the traditional alignment between masculinity and nationalism that the professional hockey spectacle celebrates. In

65 referring to Lupul’s willingness to do the ‘grunt’ work, McTavish is referring to using physicality to improve performance within the game. This asserts again that non-

Canadian players aren’t as physical, and therefore as masculine as their Canadian counterparts. It also maintains the notion that masculinity and physicality are key to hockey, and therefore key to being Canadian.

Exclusion and Contestation of Violence

Traditional associations between masculinity, aggression, violence, and on-ice performance provided a space of contestation in the second intermission. The panel discusses a hit earlier in the evening in another game between the New York Islanders and Minnesota Wild. In his first game back following a nine-game suspension, Trevor

Gillies of the Islanders uses his forearm to drive the head of opposing Wild player Cal

Clutterbuck into the plexiglass (earning him a subsequent ten-game suspension). This immediately followed a hard body check by Clutterbuck on the Islanders’ Justin Di

Benedetto. A portion of the panel’s discussion on the hit follows:

McKenzie: “It could easily be a suspension because what we’re dealing with here

is a payback. The pucks not there, he’s [Gillies] mad at Clutterbuck for taking

liberties with Di Benedeto.”

Ferraro: “We’re talking about a player that has more penalty minutes than ice-

time this year. He’s got 109 penalty minutes and 93 minutes played this season

going into tonight’s game.”

McTavish: “I want to defend him, I want to defend him because its part of his job.

He’s not a player whose going to add a lot outside of coming to the aid in this

situation. But he just got his own arms up, you can’t. He must just not know his

own strength.”

Ferraro: “That’s kind, there might be another problem, he’s just not that sharp.”

The discussion displays two incongruent perspectives coming from seemingly congruent sources. Ferraro and McTavish are both former players whose broadcasting reputation is partially attributed to this role. By mentioning the disparity in the amount of time spent on the ice against the amount of time penalized, Ferraro suggests Gillies usefulness is solely attributed to his ability to break the rules of the game. Ferraro’s comments express his objection to not only the hit, but to the type of player Gillies represents. The player who has little on-ice talent save for his ability to fight, be violent, and therefore intimidate.

McTavish “wants to defend” Gillies. He attempts to describe his actions as something accidental or incidental to the intense physicality of game play. Using aggressive physicality to justify both sides of the argument, McTavish asserts that players of Gillies limited skill-set are required. He feels their physicality and intimidation can be used either in retaliation or preventatively, creating a type of on-ice detente. Though physicality has no tangible effect that can be measured and evaluated statistically, discourse surrounding physicality are reified within the spectacle as essential to success.

McTavish asserts that Gillies level of physicality is so high, that he must be abdicated for responsibilities of his actions. He comments that Gillies: “Must just not know his own strength.” To McTavish the player did his job too well and shouldn’t be held responsible for his violent actions regardless of his intentions. Gruneau and Whitson (1993) refer to this as the “Unofficial Theory of NHL Violence”, writing:

“The theory combines two arguments. First, the violent nature of the game – high

speed, frequent collisions, the incidence of accidental and deliberate infractions –

and the inevitability, therefore, that anger will erupt dictate the use of fighting as a

safety valve permitting aggressive feelings to be discharged before they lead to

more dangerous forms of aggression.” (p. 182)

The contestation occurring during the panel’s discussion surrounds the framing of discourse on violence in hockey. Ferraro questions the role of physicality, while

McKenzie and McTavish attempt to frame the discussion around acceptable levels of physicality. McKenzie affirms this with his analysis of what made the hit worthy of suspension. McTavish’s justification is based around the necessity and importance of physicality.

Ferraro’s final comments acquiesce slightly to the framing of the other two commentators when he allows Gillies to escape responsibility due to what he attributes to be a lack of intelligence. As a former player, Ferraro’s pedigree provides him with a masculine ethos that is approximately equal to that of McTavish’s. Ferraro has an opportunity to continue his argument. To challenge the culture of physicality in the NHL that demands players who have more penalty minutes than on-ice minutes. But instead

Ferraro marginalizes the “other problem” as individual stupidity.

This moment of contestation was fleeting as the discussion was cut off, and the segment finished with a brief highlight package. Finishing the package was the one, singular shot of a woman in the entire broadcast: A mother sitting in the stands with an infant child wearing a penguin costume in her lap. The women is not even acknowledged

68 by Duthie, who says “We’re still shaking our heads about that Trevor Gillies stuff so we had to balance it out with a cute kid in a penguin outfit.” Here the exclusion of women is extended to that of consumer. Even as a ticket-buying member of the fanbase, her role is limited to that of caretaker of the “cute kid in a penguin outfit”.

CHAPTER FOUR: CASE STUDY – HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA

My second case study involves the first game of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada

(HNIC) broadcast on Saturday, March 26, 2011. The game is between the Toronto Maple

Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.

The text I used for analysis is the first game of a typical HNIC Saturday. The game is preceded by a half hour broadcast known as ‘Scotiabank Hockey Tonight’, which previews only the games broadcast on CBC. This broadcast consisted of a Maple Leafs -

Red Wings game, as well as the later Calgary Flames - Edmonton Oilers game. There is also a game between the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals occurring at the same time as the early game broadcast on CBC’s national French network, and on cbcsports.ca in English. In the instance of this particular game-text, the opponents (Maple

Leafs and Red Wings) are two of the original six NHL teams. As a result the rivalry offers the HNIC spectacle many opportunities to delve into its historical hockey cubed narrative.

Since 1952 the HNIC broadcast has been the standard programming on Saturday night during the NHL season. For generations audiences all across Canada have become accustomed to the established ritual of the HNIC spectacle. The program has evolved slowly over the decades. For the most part the broadcast has remained similar in structure, allowing for the establishment of decades of patterned viewing to support its ritualization in Canada. Preceding the game is the half-hour preview broadcast and the first intermission features Don Cherry and his ‘Coaches’ Corner’ segment. The second intermission includes the ‘Satellite Hotstove’ segment, which features discussion on NHL

70 topics by multiple commentators. Cherry and host Ron MacLean typically return following the game for a post-game analysis.

Myth Creation Within the Spectacle

Over decades of repetition the HNIC spectacle has naturalized itself within

Canadian hockey mythology as a source of ritual participation for those unable to attend the games in-person. The longstanding prominence that HNIC possesses in the establishment of the Canadian hockey spectacle allows it to seamlessly absorb and adapt

Canadian mythology as necessary. HNIC asserts itself as invaluable and omnipresent, while dictating and mediating Canadian hockey mythology within its broadcast. HNIC expresses a self-reflexive understanding of its venerable stature and role in the

(re)construction and maintenance of Canadian hockey discourse. It works to continually reconstruct and maintain Canadian hockey discourse through this self-reflexivity. As the source of the NHL spectacle in Canada since the game began being broadcast on television, HNIC offers a unique example of Eco’s notion of sport cubed, one that is historical.

The version of sport cubed HNIC provides involves a self-referential, historical discourse based on previous HNIC or CBC NHL broadcasts. Achievements, incidences, performances or other phenomena are put into historical perspective. The NHL’s past is continually revisited. Yet this past was initially broadcast and constructed by HNIC and

CBC, so it often becomes discourse based upon past discourse, cyclically and tautologically, all from the same source.

My examination of this text finds it primarily focuses on the (re)creation and maintenance of myth, as well as a celebration of violence and aggression. Notions of nationalism and of a capitalist/commercial ethic are minimal within the broadcast.

Perhaps due to its self-reflexive, self-referential nature, the HNIC spectacle surrounding this particular game involves a great deal of (re)creation and maintenance of traditional Canadian hockey mythology. All the archetypal points of this mythology, from the pond, to the local rink, to the bright lights of the NHL, are connected within the broadcast. This allows the HNIC spectacle to continually reaffirm its stature as the source of Canadian hockey discourse. Part of the HNIC weekly viewing ritual involves an introductory segment featuring a children’s hockey team from across Canada introducing the pre-game broadcast. For this broadcast the Metcalfe Russel Rats of Metcalfe, Ontario, dressed in uniform and on-ice at a local arena, enthusiastically introduce the evening’s matchups. HNIC host Ron McLean notes that NHL Hall of Famer Larry Robinson grew up in the area.

Here we have an overt symbolic alignment between the child’s game and the cultural industries within the HNIC spectacle. Their placement in the broadcast is intended to maintain the mythic alignment between the game children play for fun, and the game adults play for fame and fortune. Since the team is chosen seemingly at random each week from a different location across Canada, the myth is strengthened with the image of smiling faces, sticks, and pucks. By asserting Robinson’s association with the same area as the children’s team, MacLean reminds the audience that all NHL stars were once young boys playing for teams just like the River Rats.

Richard Gruneau and David Whitson (1993) describe this as the “Myth of the

NHL Dream,” writing:

“To become an NHL star is to leave behind the corner rinks, local arenas, and

relatively quiet life of small-town or suburban Canada for urban affluence, the

national stage of Hockey Night in Canada… Hockey stars have articulated the

dreams of generations of young Canadian men about stepping out from the

familiarity and rootedness of hometown lives towards the beckoning bright

lights.” (p. 131)

The ultimate goal of the Myth of the NHL Dream is to become part of the HNIC spectacle itself, to become a NHL player featured on one of its broadcasts.

The alignment of NHL players with everyday Canadian hockey players happens frequently throughout the broadcast. Another example occurs at the onset of the second period. The brief segment features old video footage of Red Wings coach Mike Babcock celebrating after scoring on a penalty shot in 1988. HNIC roving reporter Elliott

Friedman recounts an anecdote about Babcock’s son Michael, who also plays hockey.

Apparently after seeing the footage Michael couldn’t help but laugh since his father often pesters him about celebrating too much following goals. Friedman finishes the segment by saying that Babcock himself bashfully agreed after seeing the tape that the celebration was indeed over the top.

The discussion of coaches or player’s families works to de-commodify them. By showing the human face of hockey, it allows players and their families to be re- commodified within the spectacle. They become an aid in the spectacular construction of

Canadian hockey mythology. Just as NHL players can come from any town, they can come from any family. The player’s families when shared within the spectacle may offer a reflection the audience can associate with. This can bring the audience closer to the spectacle, drawing them into it and the hockey mythology it (re)creates and maintains.

The Babcock segment is also an example of the imposition of notions of family into the HNIC spectacle. Maintaining both hockey and HNIC as a family space is essential to its spectacular construction. HNIC’s ritualized establishment as a space to gather during the cold Saturday evenings over the long Canadian winters has lasted for generations. It is often considered a shared event for the entire family. This leads to an inter-generational hockey discourse, which is both supported by, and continually supports, HNIC’s hockey cubed discourse.

The key instance of the HNIC spectacle (re)creating the notion of family within

Canadian hockey mythology in this particular broadcast occurs over the course of several inter-related moments. It begins in a segment during the pre-game broadcast. Roving reporter Elliot Friedman interviews Ron Wilson, coach of the Maple Leafs, in the hallway outside the team’s locker room. Friedman initially discusses the game at hand and the Leafs’ playoff quest. But to finish the interview Friedman decides to take the audience on a trip through Wilson’s NHL family lineage, asking:

“It’s impossible to not think about you and Detroit without thinking of your late

father and your uncle who will be in the rink tonight… Johnny, what kinds of

things do you guys talk about since you’ve been to Toronto?”

Wilson responds:

“We just talk about hockey in general…he harkens back to the way the game used

to be played. It’s entirely different now. I’m glad the game is as fast as it is, and I

like to coach now.”

At the same time a superimpostion comes onscreen displaying photos of the three

Wilson men along with an under script displaying two of their career statistics. Oddly, towards the end of the second period a shot shatters part of the plexiglass, resulting in an extended delay. The final two minutes of the second period are played at the onset of the third period. At the end of the two minutes the teams switch ends, as is customary between each period. During this break Friedman interviews Johnny Wilson, Ron’s uncle and the subject of the earlier discussion. Friedman asks the elderly Wilson, a former player and coach, what he and his nephew discuss. The elder Wilson repsonds: “He talks about hockey today. I talk about when we didn’t have any armored suits on. No helmets or facemasks or anything.”

The unity in the answers reinforces both an assertion of the NHL myth as well as the alignment of family by the spectacle within Canadian hockey mythology. Even though the Wilsons are American, they symbolize the generational shift in the nature of the game accepted in hockey discourse. The Wilson’s intergenerational hockey discourse presumably involves the same types of conversations that take place between generations of hockey fans across the country. This discourse naturalizes the debate surrounding changes in the game. In fact Johnny Wilson provides an apposite articulation of the role

HNIC plays in the on-going (re)creation and maintenance of Canadian hockey discourse when he says: “I watch every Hockey Night in Canada and its very nice. I enjoy the program every Saturday night because it brings back some fond memories.”

This comment exemplifies the HNIC spectacle’s achievement. HNIC has become ritualized to the extent that it makes new memories while preserving old ones. The spectacle constructs the world for hockey consumption in Canada to the extent that players, fans, and their families, all take part in the shared ritual of HNIC in order to engage in Canadian hockey discourse. It is where the past is found, both the present past and the future past. History is lived and relived; (re)created, all through the spectacle.

The HNIC spectacle’s attempt to mediate hockey mythology is seen again during the official HNIC montage, which (re)creates historical moments in the broadcasted history of the game. Classic NHL highlights featuring predominantly Canadian players are digitized and placed in a simulated arena. Moments considered transcendental in the history of the NHL (for example: Bobby Orr’s dive and Theoren Fleury’s slide) are slowed down and enhanced by shifting angles to make them appear three-dimensional.

These digitized sequences are blended with contemporary highlights featuring predominantly Canadian players. The two types of images are intermixed so that players from eras past and present appear to be playing with each other in a kind of pastiche of simulacra. The mixing of past and present works to symbolically reinforce the HNIC spectacle’s traditional alignment with Canadian hockey mythology. In celebrating the historical hockey cubed discourse of their own construction, HNIC is reaffirming their role in the spectacular presentation of the game over the action on the ice. The game only offers to provide the moments, but HNIC constructs the tradition.

HNIC’s emphasis on myth creation is most apparent through their treatment of the

Detroit Red Wings. Though an American team, reasons that may include their location near the Canada/US border, their status as an original NHL team, their history of

Canadian star players, and/or their longstanding, on-going success, makes them the subject of extremely reverential treatment by the broadcast team.

The Joe Louis Arena is where the Red Wings have played since 1979. The ‘Joe’ offers two major contributions to hockey mythology, both of which are highlighted within the HNIC spectacle. First is a fan-based ritual dating back to 1952 involving throwing a dead octopus onto the ice surface. At the end of the pre-game segment, one of the final images broadcast before the national anthems is of the Joe Louis Arena clean up crew removing a dead squid from the ice before the players can resume warm-ups.

The second element of hockey mythology on display involves the boards surrounding the ice. The boards have been ascribed over time with the ability to provide strange puck bounces that only the Red Wings, who play and practice there, have learned to understand and take advantage of. Elliott Friedman discusses the phenomena when he recounts Maple Leafs’ veteran backup goalie Jean Sebastien Giguere providing rookie starting goalie James Reimer with a tutorial on the boards. Friedman quotes Giguere as saying: “You can prepare him all you want, until you go through it, you have no idea what to expect.” Play-by-play analyst Jim Hugheson refers to them in the first period as the “rubber boards of Joe Louis Arena”. Colour commentator Craig Simpson makes the following comment during on-going action:

“There are not many buildings where you have to deal with the same

environment… and those backboards as we’ve already seen, they do come into

play. And the puck is worked marvelously by the Detroit Red Wings off the

backboard.”

These types of statements display the other ongoing element of myth creation within the broadcast. Comments such as these in reference to the Red Wings are littered throughout the broadcast: “They have such attention to detail. Their practice habits are excellent, each line has a specific role,” “Puck movement, they have such patience and precision,” “One mistake and this team makes you pay,” “It’s like they have the puck on a string,” and “They make teams pay for their transgressions”…

Here we see the adaptability of myth through spectacle at play. The announcers ascribe rather generic virtues to the Wings to inflate their on-ice achievements. Despite their intended implications, the ascription of open-ended attributions and valuations to the

Red Wings is purely mythic. They attribute almost fantastic qualities that have little to do with the performance of the Red Wings in a spirited 3-2 victory.

Despite their role as the Canadian team, the Maple Leafs are marginalized within the Canadian hockey spectacle. Outside of direct game action, mention of the Maple

Leafs is almost solely limited to a hockey cubed discussion surrounding their attempt to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Interestingly along with the Maple Leafs, notions of nationalism are largely ignored within the spectacle. There are no real appeals to, or constructions of, Canadian identity at any point in the broadcast.

Overt Consumer Sponsorship

Notions of capitalism within the HNIC broadcast are limited to corporate sponsorship, but their use of sponsorship is extremely blatant. Each segment within the broadcast is branded with a corporate sponsor. These include: the Scotiabank sponsored pre-game broadcast, the ‘Peter Puck’ segment sponsored by Kelsey’s Restaurants, the

‘Subway Hockey Night Bio’, ‘Coach’s Corner’ sponsored by Moore’s Suits for Men

(which features a sole Moore’s advertisement between the introductory montage and the segment itself), and more. Hyundai, Viagra, and Home Hardware also sponsor segments.

Each segment features a superimposed logo or montage of images surrounding its sponsoring product, usually during the introduction. In some cases the superimpositions remain on-screen throughout the segment. One of the broadcast announcers typically provides a voice-over to complement the image(s).

One example of the excessive and overt use of corporate sponsorship occurs during a recurring segment known as the ‘Chevrolet I-Desk’. Commentators Jeff Marek and Scott Morrison sit with laptops below a large screen. The screen features the

Chevrolet logo, the I-Desk logo… and less predominant HNIC logo in the corner. A superimposition providing their two names next to a CBC sports logo covers the actual desk. Below the two names it says: “Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 97”. At the very bottom of the screen a final superimposition that remains for the entire I-Desk segment reads: “CBCsports.ca” in the left corner, with an I-Desk logo to its right, then a HNIC logo, and finally the Chevrolet logo in the right corner. Below that reads: “News,

Highlights and Live Blogging”, which shifts as player and team statistics begin passing through that portion of the screen.

The I-Desk provides an example of an unseemly attempt to assert a series of corporate sponsors and harmonize them within the spectacle. It also provides a glimpse of

HNIC’s attempt to develop what Steven Best and Douglas Kellner describe as the

“pseudo-interactive spectacle.” Best and Kellner (2007) write: “In pseudo-[interactive] spectacle… one is limited by the structures and power of the usually corporate forces that

79 them selves construct the spectacle in which one is merely part.” (p. 16) The I-Desk’s purpose is to align the audience with online hockey cubed media. It invites audience participation in an online forum hosted by HNIC (through CBC Sports). It is the key space where audiences are encouraged to participate in a series of corporate sponsored online activities.

The I-Desk segment closes with Marek promoting a Chevrolet sponsored contest that offers the chance to win a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals by downloading the HNIC application for mobile devices from cbcsports.ca. The audience is directed to cbcsports.ca for each of the online activity/contests promoted throughout the broadcast, including a

Kia sponsored hockey pool, as well as the ‘Star Selector’ hockey pool that is sponsored by Crown Royal. Air Canada promotes a contest called ‘Winning Streak’ that the announcer promotes by saying: “Log onto cbcsports.ca, there’s still time to make your picks.” HNIC and its co-sponsors create these virtual environments online that encourage deeper participation within the spectacle. But this participation occurs under the auspices and control of HNIC, said co-sponsors, and their interests.

Celebration and Contestation of Masculinity

The broadcast offers both moments of affirmation and moments of contestation involving conceptions of masculinity, traditional notions of aggression, and violence within the game. Notably, celebrations of the role of aggression and violence in the game are encouraged by one of the key gatekeepers within the spectacle, Ron MacLean. The host of almost all the HNIC broadcast segments, MacLean has been a fixture at CBC

80 since 1986, hosting HNIC and playing Don Cherry’s ‘straight man’ on the ‘Coach’s

Corner’ segment.

MacLean’s commentary characteristically involves recounting hockey lore, tales of Canadiana surrounding the (almost solely NHL) game from generations past. He plays a major role in constructing the mythical lineage within the spectacle each Saturday on

HNIC. After or perhaps alongside Don Cherry, MacLean is considered the ‘face’ of the

HNIC broadcast. Through the ritualization of his role over the years, he has established himself as a mediator of Canadian hockey discourse.

MacLean tells a story about the advice Johnny Wilson (the former player/coach, uncle to Ron Wilson, coach of the Maple Leafs, who is featured throughout the broadcast) gave to Ted Lindsay when the two played together. Holding his hands as though grasping a stick up at his chest and shoulders in an aggressive posture, MacLean recounts that Wilson would tell Lindsay to: “Make sure you have your stick up like this after a pass so you don’t get ‘filled in.’” Here MacLean celebrates and honours a tradition of violent behaviour in hockey that goes beyond the rules. MacLean’s role and reputation normalizes elements of hockey discourse for the audience. In this case he is openly encouraging violence in the name of détente, holding the stick as a weapon in the name of self-preservation, asserting aggressive intent to discourage others. This is one half of the same argument McTavish attempted during the TSN broadcast, that since violence begets violence, more violence is required to discourage violence.

Leading up to that story during the same pre-game segment, MacLean stands in front of a large-screen television which features a still shot of the Red Wings dressing

81 room. Above each locker is a photo of a famous Red Wing player or a moment from Red

Wings history. MacLean reminisces on a famous moment in the rivalry between the Red

Wings and Maple Leafs. The photo, taken at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in 1956, was of former Red Wing Ted Lindsay. Considered one of the all-time great Red Wings, a

Hall of Fame player who helped create the NHL players union, Lindsay was subjected in a great deal of strife both on and off the ice. The photo was captured during a moment of such strife. It was of Lindsay inverting his stick and placing it at eye-level so that the stick resembled a rifle, which he was pointing into the crowd. MacLean explains that

Lindsay made the gesture in response to death threats received from Maple Leaf fans before the game.

In lauding Lindsay’s “fearlessness”, MacLean’s commemoration of Lindsay’s famous rifle photo is a celebration of aggressive and violent behaviour. The photo itself, as well as its placement above the player’s locker frame the Lindsay moment as mythic.

MacLean is re-establishing the tradition of violence for the contemporary audience, highlighting the moment that is again, a response to threats of violence with threats of violence. As a result, violent aggressive behaviour is subsumed within mythology, normalized as ‘something that always has been, and always will be, part of the game.’

MacLean’s use of the Lindsay photo also opens up a discursive space previously considered taboo in the world of professional, commodified sports: direct aggressive interaction involving those being entertained. The photo represents a breakdown in the relationship between fan and performer, where Lindsay abandons his role as professional and symbolically threatens the entire crowd with violence.

Whereas the ice is a space in which aggression and violence are typically accepted, if not encouraged in hockey; that is where it is intended to remain. Moving aggressive, violent behaviour off-ice de-commodifies both the participants and the behaviour. What was formerly entertainment appears as a threat. Yet encouragement of violence off the ice is not an isolated moment within the HNIC spectacle. Towards the end of the third period the broadcast crew takes part in the following extra-diagetic exchange:

Jim Hugheson: “What a night in the stands at the ‘Joe’.

Glenn Healy: “I have witnessed four ten-dollar fights.”

Craig Simpson: “There’s been more fights in the crowd than on the ice.”

Glenn Healy: “It’s been great! You don’t see that very often. Reminds you of the

Islanders, Rangers series where you actually had stabbings in the crowd”

[chuckling at the end]

The whole crew is reveling in the fact that the violence which is supposed to be limited to on-ice activity by those with a vested interest in victory has spread off the ice and into the stands. Glenn Healy, a former player, is so enamoured with the crowd’s violent behaviour that he’s emboldened to proudly reminisce about a distinct moment when he played and crowd violence turned potentially lethal.

The ritual of live audience participation has so captivated many of those in attendance that they feel compelled to push past the symbolic support of their team

(cheering, chanting, wearing shirts and hats, etc…) to actual, physical, violence. Fans

83 know their physical altercations have little tangible effect on the result of the game. But the culture of violence in hockey has been so normalized and celebrated that their behaviour is intended to appear supportive. The fact that the behaviour is lauded and saluted by the broadcast team only works to further normalize and encourage.

In fact, the blurring of the line of acceptable violence is symbolically reinforced each week by HNIC through their choice of pundit. Mike Milbury, a former player, coach, and general manager in the NHL, offers commentary in different segments throughout the broadcast. Milbury’s moment of notoriety occurred in 1979. Then a player for the Boston Bruins, Milbury climbed over the plexiglass behind the player’s bench and began fighting with fans. His placement within the HNIC spectacle symbolically celebrates this action, ritually reinforcing the normalization of aggression and violence both on and off the ice.

Play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson’s excitement surrounding the fights in the stands represents a reversal in perspective that was related to a moment of spectacular contestation earlier in the game. The only fight that actually occurs on the ice comes late in the second period between the Red Wings’ Justin Abdelkader and the Maple Leafs’

Darryl Boyce after Boyce hit Brian Rafalski of the Red Wings knee-on-knee. Hugheson provides no commentary at all. As the fight goes on he is silent. Once the players are separated, the screen features shots of the players on both benches tapping the boards below them with their sticks. This is a ritualistic display of respect, admiration, and appreciation for the fight. Hughson’s comments oppose the images as he comments:

“And while all the fans and players were watching the scrap in the ring to the left of

Howard [Red Wing goalkeeper], Brian Rafalski had to be helped to the dressing room.”

Here Hughson refuses to encourage the fighting spectacle by providing any commentary, removing himself and the possible effects of his commentary from the spectacle. Following the fight Hughson’s sarcastic reference to it as occurring “in the ring” is an indicator of his aversion. The violence that began the fight is neither forgotten nor ignored by Hughson, who attempts to prioritize the injury and deemphasize the violence even over the images presented at that moment in the spectacle.

The subject of violence is raised at another point in the broadcast. The second intermission features a segment known as the ‘Satellite Hotstove’. Hosted by MacLean, it also includes journalist Pierre LeBrun, columnist/radio personality Eric Francis, and

Mike Milbury. The panel discusses a quote by 24-year veteran player Mark Recchi of the

Boston Bruins about Max Pacioretty. The comments are in reference to Pacioretty after the Montreal Canadiens player’s back was broken a few weeks earlier by a hit from

Zdeno Chara of the Bruins. The injury set off controversy about player safety. Mark

Recchi’s quote is displayed on-screen as follows:

“You know [Pacioretty] does have fractured vertebra, but the concussion was

obviously really a non-factor. Maybe a day or two… I believe, yeah, they were

trying to get Zdeno suspended and they embellished a little bit.”

Recchi asserts that the comments were an attempt to take the pressure off Chara upon his return to Montreal. A portion of the panel’s commentary follows:

Francis: “I think it was as unfortunate choice of words. I think if he could do it

again he would replace the word ‘embellished’ with the word ‘overblown.’

Because I think we would all agree that what happened that night was overblown, certainly by the people of Montreal, and by most people in the hockey world.”

LeBrun: “You know I’ve got a ton of respect for Mark Recchi. He was wrong, and he crossed the line. Concussions have become the most sensitive topic maybe in the last two decades in the game of hockey. Player’s lives are at stake because of this epidemic and you cannot use another player’s concussion and toy with it for gamesmanship.”

Milbury: “Stop. Stop. You’ve got people tweeting, you’ve got people talking.

This guy uses it as a tactic and it’s very effective by the way. I don’t like that he was yapping, but at least he came out after and said ‘I did it’.”

McLean interrupts: “You would have no statute of limitations on tactics, you’d stoop to that?”

Milbury: “Oh absolutely. Anything to win a hockey game. Who cares what players are saying now? People around the planet are tweeting and talking.”

LeBrun: “By the way, Marc Savard, I got an update on him today. He’s got memory loss, he’s scared, doesn’t know what his future is. Teammate of Mark

Recchi’s, c’mon.”

Milbury: “What’s that got to do with it?”

McLean: “We’ll it’s just such a delicate matter right now Mike that its out of bounds. Way out of bounds”

Milbury: “Wait a second. The guy was hauled off, everyone was concerned right?

He’s tweeting from the movie theatre four days later right? His concussion is fine.

He’s having a good time with it, now he’s back in the mix. Clearly it wasn’t as

serious.”

Pacioretty suffered a severe concussion and a non-displaced fractured fourth cervical vertebra in his neck. Discourse surrounding the tangible, detrimental effects of violence and aggression in hockey are marginalized as ‘overblown’. But Francis’ comments reflect the latent power the spectacle plays in dictating public discourse. In a confusing example of the tautology of the spectacle, Francis uses his role in the HNIC spectacle to place responsibility elsewhere in the spectacle for a problem he attributes to the spectacle. All this despite continuing the spectacular discourse he is criticizing.

Francis is still providing more coverage of coverage; more commentary on commentary, within hockey cubed.

Pierre LeBrun’s candor surrounding the seriousness of injuries reflects a challenge to the culture of violence prevalent in hockey. In referring to an “epidemic” of concussions, and stating in no certain terms that “players lives are at stake”, LeBrun is fundamentally challenging the role of aggression and violence in hockey. LeBrun’s comments deflate the mythology surrounding the hockey player who dishes out and absorbs violence, who continues to compete through injuries often sustained through aggressive, violent play. The notion of mortality pushes as far past the acceptable levels of violence in hockey as possible. By raising the possibility of player’s death, LeBrun is directly asserting that the level of violence in the game has reached unacceptable depths.

The national sport, the family activity and event, may symbolize life and death struggle,

87 but collapsing the symbolic space into an actual life or death struggle is a serious challenge to the values ascribed to traditional Canadian hockey discourse.

When Milbury, one of HNIC’s designated gatekeepers of violent and aggressive behaviour in traditional Canadian hockey discourse objects, LeBrun refuses to back down. Instead he uses yet another example of the tangible effects of violent play on one of Recchi’s teammates, Marc Savard, who retired earlier in the season due to the effects of repeated concussions.

At this point MacLean changes tack from the position he takes earlier in the broadcast when he recounted stories that glorified violence. MacLean’s criticism of

Milbury represents a similar example of the contradictions within the spectacle’s tautology to that of Francis. With his misapplication of legal jargon, MacLean criticizes the use of spectacle for violence. He opposes the use of the sports media in an attempt to gain an added, intangible, advantage. An advantage seemingly offering a similar level of intangibility to that of on-ice violent and aggressive play. This criticism occurs despite his personal endorsement of violent, physical play earlier in the broadcast. Here MacLean is not challenging the violent act that caused severe injury, he is challenging who is discussing it within hockey cubed. In this way he is gatekeeping for hockey cubed discourse, ensuring the strict definition of roles. Hockey cubed commodifies players, players do not use hockey cubed as a commodity with which to gain competitive advantage. Like Francis, MacLean blames the spectacle he is part of for creating more spectacle, and in the process of doing so also enhances the spectacle.

Milbury aligns himself with Recchi’s comments, claiming notions of gamesmanship are no different on the ice than in the spectacle, that any way of gaining competitive advantage is fair. He even agrees with the assertion that people are attempting to manipulate the discourse surrounding Pacioretty’s injury to gain competitive advantage. Despite the fact that this perspective further marginalizes

Pacioretty’s injury, Milbury reifies the role of spectacle in the game. He legitimizes the sports media as a tactic that affects the on-ice competition.

The discussion was quickly put to rest by Francis’ re-assertion of the sports media’s role in blowing the injury and subsequent discourse out of proportion. The moment of contestation passed as the segment ended. The ‘Satellite Hotstove’ may have offered a vigorous debate, but it is by no means the most spirited segment of the HNIC spectacle. That distinction typically goes to ‘Coach’s Corner.’

Don Cherry and the Reification of Violence

Occurring during the first intermission of the first game of the HNIC broadcast, the Coach’s Corner segment has gone almost completely unchanged since its inception. It features life-long minor league player and NHL coach-turned spectacular media personality Don Cherry, as well as HNIC host Ron MacLean. In his book The Boys of

Saturday Night, Scott Young (1980) describes the segment, writing:

“Don Cherry, the presiding iconoclast of ‘Coach’s Corner’, and Ron MacLean,

whose gadfy role in the Cherry segment keeps the great man moving from one

controversial pronouncement to another. Part of Cherry’s arsenal of the

unexpected is that while most weeks they discuss possible subjects – and

sometimes get to none of them – they do not actually rehearse... His ammunition

is frequently not quite what the head of CBC Sports or other erudite citizens

would like him to use, but that fact alone gets him wide public approval, and not

just from the yahoo constituency.” (p. 15)

At the end of the first period the Coach’s Corner segment is previewed by showing fans in and outside of the Joe Louis Arena cheering for Cherry. They hold signs that read: “Can’t Beat Cherry” vertically forming an anagram and “Don Cherry 4 Prime

Minister.”

Cherry dresses up his controversial banter literally. He is almost always adorned in what James Gillett, Phillip White, and Kevin Young (1996) describe as:

“Custom-tailored shirts with three-and-a-half inch collars and monogrammed

cuffs, and his equally outrageous ties. This attention grabbing combination is

invariably complemented by a suit or suit jacket with an equally outlandish cut

and fabric.” (p. 61).

This broadcast in characteristic fashion, featured one of his typically loud outfits: a purple and black plaid printed suit with a matching pink tie, pocket square, and boutonniere pinned to his lapel.

Cherry typically supports overt masculinity and aggressive, violent behaviour in hockey. He applauds this type of play and harshly criticizes any attempts to subvert or curb violence in the game. Gillett, White, and Young (1996) write:

“Cherry paints a portrait of the relationship between hockey and Canadian

identity that is based on exclusion and dominance. Advocacy of toughness and

violence in hockey is not only gendered, but reflects and reproduces a definition

of masculinity that requires the dominance of others.” (p. 67)

The Coach’s Corner segment during this particular broadcast is no different, as

Cherry reiterates his views on violence in the sport ad nauseum. What follows is part of the discussion between Cherry and MacLean:

MacLean: “What do you think of this Mike Komisarek hit on Mark Oliver?”

Cherry: “I could be politically correct if you want. I could say it was terrible like

everybody else. I could say, oh we gotta get it out of the game. You should blame

the guy that gave the guy the ‘suey’ [Cherry appears to be referencing a pass

forcing the receiving player to turn back, unable to see ahead of him and

vulnerable to be hit]. Watch the ‘suey’ up the middle. What did he do here,

[Komisarek] could have killed him if he wanted to, he just touched him like that.”

As the hit is being replayed onscreen Cherry then applauds Komisarek further, saying:

“You know Komisarek is playing a lot better now, I’ll tell you that. You better

believe it. He’s starting to play a little more aggressive like he did in Montreal.

And if they ever get him going they’ll have a good defense going.”

In this moment Cherry transfers the blame from Komisarek for his own actions to an anonymous player who made an up-ice pass. The notion of moving up-ice, attacking

91 the opponents end, is intrinsic to the game. But Cherry frames it as a secondary tactic, subordinate to the exchange of violence players engage in on-ice. Mark Oliver who received the hit is not mentioned at all, completely marginalizing the effects of the violent act. Instead after deflecting blame from Komisarek on an action he was solely responsible for, Cherry credits Komisarek’s restraint in not causing serious injury with the hit. This type of comment normalizes violence and aggression to the extent that their limits are left up to the mercy of those imposing, rather than the rights of the imposed.

Cherry reinforces this notion by continuing to applaud Komisarek’s play, considering the hit metonymical of an overall improvement in the player’s performance.

This reaffirms the Myth of NHL Violence, of the impact of the intangible benefits of violence and aggression on the game. It is another prong in the argument justifying violence in hockey. Not just catharsis, detente, or lack of culpability due to the speed and intensity of game play. Cherry here is asserting that violence, and aggression alone are improving an individual’s performance, and that this will benefit his team. It is an extreme valuation of the role of violent and aggressive behaviour that is deeply rooted in the culture of the sport of which Cherry is key a gatekeeper. As Gillett, White, and

Young (1996) write: “Cherry represents an attempt to reclaim traditional ways of thinking about hockey in an attempt to reassert his way of playing as the way of playing.”

(p. 70)

Cherry closes his segment by discussing a hit by the Penguins’ Matt Cooke on

Ryan McDonough of the New York Rangers. A player with a reputation for causing injury who has been suspended in the past, Cooke was again suspended through the first round of the playoffs for the hit. While recounting a story where he engaged in a heated

92 confrontation with Cooke about his actions following a game some time in the past,

Cherry still refuses to place responsibility on the individual for his actions. He comments:

“It’s almost like a drunk who has to have something done to him to straighten him out.”

Cherry then uses a series of statistics to lament the effect of Cooke’s loss on the Penguins performance.

Finally, Cherry applauds McDonough for claiming that he didn’t believe the elbow he received to his head was on purpose, despite the offending party. Cherry said:

“I got all choked up when I heard that… That’s a rookie showing respect, even for a veteran like Cooke.” Cherry then lectures young players, presumably in the audience, on the importance of respecting the veterans on their team. Here Cherry encourages a deeper embedding of violence and aggression within hockey culture. He is applauding the young generation of NHL players for understanding and engaging in the nuances of ritualized subordination to violence as a right of initiation. To Cherry the ability to respectfully accept violence from more senior players is a display of virtue. This of course includes the underlying understanding that with eventual seniority comes the opportunity to inflict similar violence, with a similar lack of response. Cherry frames this self-subordination as a matter of “respect”, another mythical attribute with no tangible qualities or measures. In using a term with its associated virtues but variable meaning, Cherry is encouraging the next generation of children to accept and perpetuate these patterns of violent behaviour under the pretense of it being of merit.

Ambiguity Within the Spectacle

Moments of ambiguity in regards to the presentation of violence within the HNIC spectacle were limited. LeBrun’s moment of contestation is trivialized through a self- refractive criticism of hockey cubed. It is disregarded as more discussion surrounding the discussion surrounding hockey by those who discuss hockey for a living. Play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson is ambiguous in his sole treatment of violence, extolling inter- fan violence in the stands while disparaging in-game violence. The remainder of the spectacle seems to fully support of the existing role violent and aggressive play has in the game.

Another space of ambiguity in the HNIC spectacle surrounds the role of women.

HNIC has former Canadian Olympic Gold-Medal women’s hockey player Cassie

Campbell-Pascal on their broadcast team. During the broadcast she is placed in a similar role to Elliott Friedman, but at the Montreal – Washington game. Campbell-Pascal interviews Montreal Canadiens’ captain Brian Gionta on–ice about the matchup, and she provides last minute roster updates at the end of the pre-game broadcast.

Campbell-Pascal’s role in the spectacle is a strong marker of legitimacy for women within hockey discourse. Though her extensive experience in amateur women’s hockey has no involvement with the NHL, her positioning within the spectacle gives her hierarchical equivalence to the veterans of the NHL, hockey cubed, or both. This extends the limits of the spectacle, breaking the confines imposed by the self-reflexivity of hockey cubed. If Milbury’s presence is an affirmation of the traditions of Canadian hockey discourse, Campbell-Pascal’s presence is a contestation of these same notions.

Within the spectacle Campbell-Pascal symbolizes both women, as well as the portion of

Canadian hockey culture that is excluded by the spectacle.

Despite the symbolic contestation provided by Campbell-Pascal’s role on the

HNIC broadcast team, another moment involving women within the broadcast reaffirmed the hierarchy of patriarchy prevalent in Canadian hockey discourse.

Exclusion within the Spectacle

The ‘Subway Hockey Night Bio’ feature focuses on Steve and Stephanie Dillon, and Jason and Nancy Dillon of Conception Bay, Newfoundland. The two couples won a raffle to be guests of the Red Wings’ Danny Cleary, who is from Carbonear,

Newfoundland. The prize included travel to Detroit, game tickets, and team merchandise as well. The segment closes with the following comments:

Friedman: “They said that the only drawback was that they had to bring their

wives.”

Hughson: “Oh, they admitted that.”

Here the two men jokingly reaffirm the notion of hockey as an exclusively male space. But their comments extend the boundaries of exclusion in hockey to the ritual of attending hockey games. The broadcasters normalize limitations in audience participation for women, or at least assert that the presence of women places limits on audience participation for men.

This is not the only overt assertion of exclusion within the broadcast. Following the game there is a half-hour break before the second game of the evening. MacLean and

Cherry return to fill the space with commentary on the game that has just finished.

Gillett, White, and Young (1996) describe Cherry’s performance as consistently exhibiting: “Explicit and openly acknowledged conservatism and class bias, coupled with

[Cherry’s] more implicit sexism and homophobia, have become cornerstone elements of his image and schtick.” (p. 68)

But in their post-game commentary it was MacLean who couldn’t help but indulge in a bit of sophomoric homophobia. A discussion surrounding Joey McDonald, the Red Wing backup goalkeeper who finished the game in net went as follows:

Cherry: “[Joey McDonald] From Pitcu Nova Scotia. And Leonard [Presumably

McDonald’s father] is watching now. He’s a ferry man, and don’t you say a word.

He drives a ferry or whatever, he’s the captain of a ferry wise guy.”

Mclean: “He’s probably pulling out right now.”

Cherry: “Shut up…”

Then as Cherry begins to describe McDonalds’ in-game performance, he understands the double-entendre of ‘ferry man’ and ‘fairy man’ that forms the basis for

MacLean’s joke. Cherry then begins laughing and is unable to finish his commentary.

The unscripted nature of the segment provided a disconcerting authenticity. In tandem MacLean and Cherry provide an archetypal example of the type of overt exclusion that is typically encouraged during their broadcasts. Gillett, White, and Young

(1996) write: “It is clear that for Cherry the people who have a right to play (or watch)

96 hockey are white, Anglo-Saxon (and to a lesser degree francophone) working class, and

/or rural (straight) men.” (p. 67)

Chapter Five: Conclusion & Discussion - The Power of Spectacle

The role of spectacle in the relationship between Canadian identity and the sport of ice hockey is one that has eluded prior scholarship. Theories surrounding spectacle involve the imposition of a worldview through the proliferation of images that shapes, and is shaped by, society. These images impose a hegemonic omnipotence on those who engage them, encouraging the consumption of commercial products, primarily itself, as the continual solutions to the problems it presents. This circular logic allows spectacle over time to continually reaffirm itself within itself, further shaping the society it has become permanently embedded within.

Hockey Night in Canada has established itself as one of the key purveyors of the

Canadian spectacle. Every Saturday night for generations HNIC has been broadcast on the partially state-funded CBC, allowing over time the establishment and reinforcement of hockey mythology within the spectacle it provides. TSN has claimed their space within the spectacle by offering broadcasts of NHL games on other nights, extending the rituals of viewership established by HNIC by making them more frequent.

The debate within Canadian hockey discourse has typically surrounded two disparate views of the game. The first celebrates notions of national identity, masculinity, and violence that hold value in traditional Canadian hockey mythology. The second represents the criticism of those who feel excluded from participation in Canadian hockey mythology, and subsequently, in being Canadian.

Literature has traditionally played a significant role in the development of hockey mythology and its alignment with notions of Canadian identity. Jason Blake explored the

98 rich history of works composed by Canadian, English-language writers surrounding the game in his work: Canadian Hockey Literature. Blake (2008) writes:

“The sport requires a communion of two fundamental realities: water and the

cold. The many lakes and rivers were passageways into Canada, winter the

original nemesis, and hockey is thus often naturalized in Canadian thought as of it

grew magically from the soil or ice.” (p. 5)

This type of romanticizing is common throughout the decades of works written in tribute to ice hockey. Unfortunately these archetypal myths surrounding Canadian hockey tend to exclude many different groups of people (women, minorities, men who don’t share the same version of masculinity, those without the financial means, etc…) from participation. These groups are largely represented by a body of literature that opposes the idealized alignment between country and sport. The most prominent critical work surrounding the relationship between hockey and Canada was done by Rick Gruneau and

David Whitson in their book: Hockey night in Canada. Gruenau and Whitson (1993) write:

“There is something to be said for the argument that hockey draws on and

dramatizes the Canadian experience with long winters, the cold, and large open

spaces… The problem arises when Canadians appreciation for hockey is mistaken

for ‘nature’ rather than something that is socially and culturally produced.” (p. 26)

The social and cultural production of this naturalization of the relationship between hockey and Canada is largely accomplished through the spectacle, which is the focus of this thesis.

The game texts have been purposely chosen randomly from the two national broadcasters of professional hockey. They are both typical games, one of many broadcasts by each network throughout the NHL season. Notable and striking portions of the game text’s diagesis, the description of game action and subsequent analysis, were distilled from the game text. These moments were unpacked further to examine their contribution to the Canadian hockey spectacle. Both game texts offered unique opportunities to interrogate the types of values and views the spectacle was attempting to shape. In the same way any game, regarded as text in a similar manner, would offer similar opportunities for dissection.

The two game texts reflected the two broadcaster’s different positioning within the spectacle, as was shown by their approach to hockey cubed discourse. The HNIC broadcast’s use of itself as a point of reference allowed for the reconstruction and reaffirmation of traditional hockey mythology, and of its own role in the spectacle. TSN’s broadcast offered only an ephemeral moment within the spectacle. Their contribution to the hockey cubed discourse focused on contextualizing the evening, that specific moment within the narrative of the season. Without the relationship HNIC has established within the spectacle, TSN is more directly focused on the commodification of players and the immediate valuations of their performances within the moment. Both game texts offer differing versions of a similar type of self-referentiality, as the professional hockey spectacle merely goes on describing itself. In doing so the spectacle embeds itself ever deeper into Canadian hockey mythology.

Traditional notions of violence were contested in both cases within the spectacle.

They were glorified, celebrated, and even commemorated at differing points throughout

100 the broadcasts. Violence that occurred between fans off-ice was condoned. Yet despite this there were moments when participants in the spectacle contested its re-assertion within traditional hockey mythology. The most notable moment of contestation within either game text was Pierre LeBrun’s discussion of mortality during the HNIC ‘Satellite

Hotstove’ segment. LeBrun challenged the glorification of the mythic hockey player who ignored injury in the name of personal sacrifice for the benefit of the team. If that archetype represents a favourable view of violence, then LeBrun’s comments were a deliberate attempt to provide the other side of the argument, to reshape Canadian hockey discourse around these new parameters.

Despite this moment and a couple of others, typically violence was celebrated and espoused within both game texts. As a corollary, so too were re-affirmations of masculinity based in domination and violence. Associations of masculinity with aggression and violence are asserted as inherent and natural. They are virtues that are almost uniformly praised, reified, and reaffirmed throughout the Canadian hockey spectacle. Broadcasters laud violence in the stands between fans and reminisce over more violent encounters in the past. Both McTavish on TSN and Cherry on HNIC attribute the improvement of individual players to a commitment to more physically aggressive, often violent play.

HNIC did challenge the traditional Canadian hockey spectacle through its placement of Cassie Campbell-Pascal as one of its roving reporters, as men have typically taken all visible roles within the Canadian hockey spectacle. Campbell-Pascal’s presence within the spectacle legitimizes the role of women within the spectacle. It also credits knowledge of hockey that was developed outside of the NHL spectacle as equal in value.

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Unfortunately Campbell-Pascal’s presence marks one of the only times women were found within either case study. The almost complete absence of women is another example of the assertion of masculine exclusivity.

Moments of contestation as in the case of LeBrun are fleeting. But it is possible that shifting the shape of Canadian hockey discourse within the spectacle is a process that takes time and repetition to establish even footing. Exploring the contextualizing and harmonizing of moments of contestation within the spectacle over time would be an excellent area for further study.

After the almost complete dearth of women, the most notable exclusion from either broadcast was the absence of traditional associations between hockey and Canada.

Notions of nationalism were marginal at best within the TSN broadcast. The HNIC broadcast is primarily concerned with myth (re)creation based in its own self-reflexivity.

In both cases the alignment between sport and Canada is marginalized or simply taken for granted.

In the introduction I asserted that Canadian identity was susceptible to mediation by the spectacle due to televised hockey’s (predominantly HNIC) long-established role in developing a common conception of Canada. But if nationalism is excluded from the spectacle, then what is included in the spectacle? The answer appears to be straightforward: more hockey cubed, more spectacle, more of the same. The Canadian hockey spectacle is not really about Canada at all, it assumes the naturalization of the alignment between hockey and country.

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In the TSN text the primary focus was on hockey cubed, the self-reflective discourse of contemporary goings-on throughout the NHL. This along with the commodification of players through the association of statistical measurements with comparisons of performance placed the game itself as secondary. The primary concern within the broadcast was the discussion surrounding the discussion, surrounding the game, within the spectacle. The HNIC text, self-aware of its established position as purveyor of spectacle, included a good deal of hockey cubed discussion on the contemporary professional hockey spectacle. But the HNIC spectacle provided a historically based, self-referential hockey cubed discourse that reified itself as the traditional source of hockey mythology. HNIC works actively to fit itself into the myth of professional hockey, framing performance within its own spectacle as the mark of achievement within Canadian hockey mythology.

The moments of contestation that occurred within both texts offer two divergent perspectives on their role within, or affect on, the spectacle. Ideally contestation offers an opportunity to reshape the spectacle, to hijack its logic in order to shift discourse.

Douglas Kellner saw spaces of contestation as offering the possibility for liberation from spectacular oppression. Kellner (2003) writes: “Envisioning [spectacle] as contested terrains articulates the openings and possibilities for social transformation, and the potentials for resistance and struggle.” (p. 29)

This study found that contestation was limited to a handful of sound bites in a sea of opposing noise. Perhaps the cumulative effect of LeBrun’s assertion of mortal danger in the game as well as other, similar statements will upset the linear messaging of the spectacle. Perhaps through time and repetition these moments of contestation do impact

103 the shape and content of Canadian hockey discourse. But that instance and those like it can also be understood as merely opposing voices in a segment that is based on argumentation between commentators. In that case the message becomes marginalized as hockey cubed, more discussion surrounding the discussion, surrounding an event, in the professional hockey world.

Kellner’s vision of contestation presenting possibilities for spectacular upheaval and reversal in this instance fall short, as potential is all the moments of ambiguity have to offer. Due to its self-referential nature the Canadian hockey spectacle is a closed circuit that has established itself through decades of repetition. The worldview it imposes and reinforces through the rituals of spectatorship are barely interrupted by the identified moments of contestation. Often times they are enveloped within hockey cubed. This negates any potential the moments may have possessed. Instead it allows the spectacle to seize the moments of contestation and use them to encourage a deeper allure.

Debord’s tautologic vision of spectacle as always referring to, and reflecting back upon itself, is a far more apposite articulation of the dynamic the Canadian hockey spectacle imposes. Moments of its self-referential reinforcement and reification mark an almost archetypal example of Debord’s integrated spectacle. Assertions of nationalism associated with Debord’s notion of the concentrated spectacle, and the emphasis on consumerist consumption associated with Debord’s notion of the diffuse spectacle, both meet in Canada during the on-ice integrated spectacle. Debord (1988) writes:

“The final sense of the integrated spectacle – that it has integrated itself into

reality to the same extent as it was describing it, and that it was reconstructing it

104

as it was describing it. As a result, this reality no longer confronts the integrated

spectacle as something alien.” (p. 9)

The spectacle is reliant on consumption for its survival. Primarily it encourages consumption of itself, but this must be complemented by the encouragement to consume the commercial products that sponsor it. Since there aren’t many truly distinguishable markers of nationalism in Canada, the ice hockey spectacle has distinguished itself as this marker, aligning notions of nationalism with consumption. Within the integrated spectacle of Canadian hockey, consuming the commodities endorsed by the spectacle, be they images or products, is equivalent to buying membership into being ‘Canadian.’ In an absence of other identifiable characteristics of nationalism, increased consumption of the commercial products that use the spectacle to impose themselves onto the audience become indicators of Canadianness.

Despite being lost or misappropriated within the spectacle, the moments of contestation are metonymical of larger debates within hockey discourse. Their presence reflects a larger ambiguity that exists within the different groups who make up the televised hockey audience. Traditionally the spectacle has been used to portray a vision of a unified, distinctive, collective, Canadian identity. Ice hockey has become deeply entrenched with the generations of predominantly European immigrants who inhabited the nation throughout the second-half of the twentieth century. For these Canadians the game was played by, and the spectacle featured, predominantly white men. Other groups who were excluded from actually playing were encouraged to participate through the rituals of spectatorship. Although the face of Canada has changed over the decades, the hockey spectacle has remained consistently similar. While this spectacle continually

105 encourages its own reification, the images it projects back to Canadians no longer carry the currency they once did.

Those who engage the spectacle may see the world outside it as different and changing. In this case the sublime illusory paradise projected through the spectacle loses resonance with them. For those excluded by the images of the spectacle, the logic of the spectacle becomes inverted. Everything that draws prioritized groups into the spectacle pushes marginalized groups further away.

Taking the argument further, one can speculate that the spectacle is threatened with causing its own demise. By detaching itself further from tangible reality, the spectacle loses its prominence in the organization of daily life. Is this the death of spectacle?

No. Contestation becomes a new lifeline for the spectacle. Contestation allows the parameters of the spectacle to expand and impose itself onto discourse surrounding the contestation. Any forms of contestation highlighted within the parameters of the spectacle are in fact bound by its rules. The literature would suggest that those who intend to commandeer the spectacle must adapt their messaging to its logic. In doing so they cede control of their messaging over to the spectacle. Arguably contestation is used by the spectacle to (re)construct its own discursive battleground. However this study found that contestation was limited, thus opening up the possibility that the hockey spectacle has become a self-enclosed system not vulnerable from contestation from the outside.

Contestation is absorbed with the two variations of hockey cubed that the two broadcasters assert.

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By using the spectacle’s logic to present themselves, contesting interests are not only subsumed within the spectacle, they also reify the spectacle as a space for discursive exchanges. Contestation is the new logic of the contemporary spectacle, a perception created to induce deeper seduction.

The role the spectacle plays in the negotiation of Canadian identity far outweighs the game itself. The memesis of the game, the actual on-ice action, is the mere foil. It is the virtual territory the spectacle uses as proxy in its battle for increased spectacular consumption. Within the spectacle consumption is not intended to encourage nationalism.

The established Canadian nationalist associations with hockey mythology are intended to encourage more consumption of the spectacle.

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