Russell Field is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba. He researches and teaches in the areas of sport history and sport and film, and is also the founder of the Canadian Sport Film Festival (sportfilmfestival.ca).
Authors | Russell Field
Articles on Amodern by Russell Field
TOQUES AND TURBANS, STICKS AND SHOW TUNES
Incorporating the "Other" within Canadian Hockey Films
While cultural critics have debated the ways in which narratives of hockey have been mobilized to stand in for Canadian-ness, filmmakers have been slower to take up this critique. This paper considers two recent feature films: Breakaway tells the story of a Sikh-Canadian determined to achieve hockey stardom in the face of ridicule within his own culture and racism from the hockey community, while Score: A Hockey Musical profiles a hockey prodigy forced to confront the game’s hyper-masculine expectations, using the camp tropes of musical cinema. While these films confront the hyper-masculinity and whiteness of hockey, the expansion of the boundaries of Canadian national identity their characters suggest is illusory.