Who are we? Every once in a while, we won­der, locals and immi­grants alike. Peo­ple shaped the coun­try we live in, but the face of this same coun­try changed, evolved and reflects today’s world as well as its his­tory. At least, I hope so, because I con­sider change chance and not a threat.

Canada is a mul­ti­cul­tural coun­try. Today, accord­ing to the BBC , 20% of peo­ple liv­ing in Canada are foreign-born and 250 000 new­com­ers make Canada their home each year. These peo­ple will soon be Cana­di­ans are most of them will adapt to the North Amer­i­can way of life, while bring­ing some aspects of their own cul­ture in Canada. Food, lan­guages, cus­toms, skills… we all win.

Yet, some are scared. Who are we? We all are the faces of Canada. The tra­di­tional Anglo-European face of the coun­try is chang­ing, that’s true. But Canada is very much alive. National iden­tity isn’t some­thing sta­tic and we don’t have to look alike to form a coun­try. A lot of things make Canada a dis­tinct coun­try, from the triv­ial lit­tle things to polit­i­cal choices, from geo­graph­i­cal places to spe­cial peo­ple, from val­ues we share to things that bring us together.

In 2008, I’ll apply for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship. I first came here in 2002 and I’ll be one of these foreign-born. French. Cana­dian. And a cit­i­zen of the world.

What defines Canada? I’m start­ing a series on our icons, from peo­ple to places, from every­day life’s items to sports, from trade­marks to cus­toms. Don’t expect any­thing too deep: this is Canada the way I see it. I don’t bring answers. I just want to share, and I will with you every Sat­ur­day — enjoy!

Zhu

One of the rea­son we can stand the cold weather and long win­ters is… hockey, Canada’s national sport. Think soc­cer for Brazil, NFL foot­ball for the US or cricket for India. That pop­u­lar. The hockey sea­son ends with the Stan­ley Cup play-offs, then finals. I don’t have sta­tis­tics, but I would bet that pro­duc­tiv­ity at work dra­mat­i­cally decreases dur­ing that time!

Hockey is a really fun sport to watch. The game usu­ally lasts 60 min­utes (plus over­time if needed) and it’s a speedy game. A famous rivalry in Canada opposes Toronto’s Maple Leaf to basi­cally the rest of the coun­try. But Canada also love play­ing Rus­sia, Swe­den, Fin­land, and of course the USA.

Hockey is also famous for its fights, an estab­lished aspect of the sport. Elbow­ing, high-sticking, rough­ing are per­fectly accept­able… and expected.

I’m not a sports per­son myself, but I must admit I like hockey. First, going to a game is really fun. The atmos­phere is very friendly and fans of the two teams respect each other even if taunt­ing is part of the game. Noth­ing like with soc­cer in Europe where fans are put meters apart with the anti-riots cops in-between. Sec­ond, even if you don’t under­stand all the rules and the lingo, you won’t be bored watch­ing the play­ers skate at a pretty amaz­ing speed and hit each other (blood is bonus). A period is only twenty min­utes long besides. Finally, Cana­di­ans take hockey seri­ously and being able to quote a great hockey moment (fight, scor­ing, penalty…) is the best way to make new friends!

Related arti­cles:

1. Hockey Night
2. The Huge­ness (4÷10)
3. Hockey Day In Canada
4. Go Sens, Go !
5. French And Eng­lish (3÷10)