HOCKEY IN QUEBEC, MUCH MORE THAN A GAME - A SOCIOLOGICAL-ANALYSIS OF HOCKEYS CENTRAL PLACE IN THE QUEBECERS QUEST FOR IDENTITY

How can a culturally-futile practice such as hockey be of interest to Quebec sociologists? This paper focuses on hockey as a popular cultura l practice in this province. Emphasis is put on its complexity, its va rious modes of expression, its background and its overwhelming influen ce on Quebecers' imagination. It particularly illustrates the process by which this sport has come to incorporate the quest for identity of many Quebecers since the '50s. The issue of cultural identity, the que st for this identity, the anguish which has affected the people from t he past up to the present are also expressed in hockey. Questioning th is sport about its identity problem amounts to questioning the imagina tion of Quebecers to learn more about their hopes and fears in terms o f cultural identity. Maurice Richard's and Guy Lafleur's biographies, as well as newspaper and magazine clippings, are examined for this pur pose. The study suggests that hockey is still the locus of tension of the Quebecers' identity problem, even in the current context of a worl d capitalist.