When Canadian ice hockey centre Connor McDavid scored in extra time to steer Canada to victory over the US within the Nationwide Hockey League’s 4 Nations Face-Off event in February, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on social media, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
Trudeau’s remark was a direct response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated denigration of the prime minister because the “governor” of the “51st state.” It captured the escalating tensions between the 2 nations over commerce, tariffs and Trump’s threats to annex Canada.
In the meantime, the tournament itself, which pitted the highest Canadian and American gamers towards each other for the primary time in additional than a decade, turned a illustration of those deepening political divisions and confirmed that hockey isn’t as politically neutral as is often suggested.
Because the 4 Nations Face-Off ended, hockey analogies and imagery proceed to dominate the dialog round Canada-U.S. relations. This time the main target is on Gordie Howe (or “Mr. Hockey” as he was broadly recognized), whose strategic use of elbows on the ice has turn into a political rallying cry for Canadians.
Canada is “elbows up”
Throughout his skilled profession from 1946 to 1980, Howe mixed talent and scoring capacity with toughness, physicality and a willingness to fight when necessary.
Specifically, Howe’s practice of keeping his “elbows up” within the corners to thrust back belligerents on the opposing staff has turn into a focus for Canadians’ actions towards Trump’s aggression.
The hashtag #ElbowsUpCanada has been trending on social media. Howe’s steering has been echoed by Canadian comic Mike Myers on Saturday Night Live and by Trudeau at the Liberal leadership convention that marked the transition to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In his first speech as Liberal leader, Carney made one other hockey reference when he stated:
“We didn’t ask for this combat, however Canadians are at all times prepared when another person drops the gloves. So the Individuals, they need to make no mistake: In commerce, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
Whereas it might be stunning to see such enthusiasm for an “elbows up” strategy and for “dropping the gloves” as one would in a hockey combat, this sort of strategic employment of violence matches completely with Howe’s longstanding model of hockey manhood.
(CP PHOTO/Doug Ball)
“Mr. Elbows” and the “Bashful Basher”
Though Howe’s early nickname of “Mr. Elbows” has obtained the majority of the general public’s consideration just lately, his different moniker used extensively by the Detroit media throughout his first season within the NHL — the “Bashful Basher” — captures much more successfully the model of masculinity that Canadians are at the moment calling upon of their conflict with Trump.
Writing within the Detroit Free Press in 1947, reporter Marshall Dann invited readers to “Meet Red Wings’ Bashful Basher.” Alongside a photograph of a youthful Howe innocently sipping a milkshake by way of a pair of straws, Dann famous:
“Howe not solely had confirmed himself an exceptionally promising rookie, however he additionally had established the truth that whereas he could be a malted milk devotee off the ice, he positively was no milk-sop on a hockey rink.”
Howe’s model of violence was cautious and calculated, reasonably than reckless or emotional. Even when he used his fists to batter an opponent — such as in his famous 1959 fight with New York Rangers enforcer Lou Fontinato — Howe introduced himself as a reluctant and affordable fighter who conformed to the idealized, manly “code” of hockey.
He resorted to combating solely to defend smaller teammates and to discourage much more dangerous types of violence, comparable to stick assaults or overly aggressive hits. Removed from a wild brawler, Howe was a peaceful protector, ruled by a way of sincere accountability for his actions.
Author Don O’Reilly’s 1975 biography Mr. Hockey additionally highlights the picture of “two Gordie Howes — quiet, unassuming, and bashful off the ice and aggressive and aggressive on the ice.”
O’Reilly contrasts “the mild-mannered, smiling, innocent-faced Howe, the clean-cut All-Canadian-American boy” together with his extra ruthless counterpart: “The man who excels together with his elbows as weapons, a person who, his opponents say, is expert with the unlawful excessive stick and so devious that the officers typically fail to notice the offense.”
Likewise, a 1962 Time magazine profile quoted a rival coach as saying:
“When Howe will get knocked down, he seems like he doesn’t care. However when he’s getting up, he seems for the opposite man’s quantity. Somewhat later, the man could have 4 stitches in his head.”
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Mr. Hockey and Canadianness
A mixture of humble manliness and managed violence firmly established Howe’s masculine credentials within the culture of hockey. Extra broadly, Mr. Hockey turned an admirable embodiment of essentially the most valued manly qualities of the postwar interval in North America.
Howe’s strategic use of combating additionally normalized the high level of violence in hockey by exhibiting that it may very well be measured and purposeful, in accordance with the casual code of expectations that ruled the sport.
Though critics of combating and violence have turn into extra outspoken in recent times, these values remain integral to hockey culture at the highest level and an influential level of reference for what it means to be a “true” hockey fan and a patriotic Canadian.
Within the present political local weather, it’s maybe the title of the story that appeared in Life magazine in 1959 that resonates most clearly: “Don’t fiddle with Gordie. Hockey’s powerful man (Lou Fontinato) discovers that the sport’s greatest participant (Gordie Howe) is a tough man in a combat.”
With their “elbows up,” Canadians are relying on a Gordie Howe-style response — rational, professional and efficient — in a commerce battle with the US which will simply be getting began.
