The Meaning of Puck
By Bruce Dowbiggin
What People Are Saying About The Meaning of Puck
"That rarest of beasts: the perfect thriller"
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Novel Overview
The Meaning of Puck
Hockey is more than a game. It's more than a way of life. In Canada, it's a portrait
of who we are.
It's a window into our very soul.
In The Meaning of Puck, bestselling author Bruce Dowbiggin takes a peek into that
window and -
frankly - it's not always such a pretty picture. Viewed through the prism of
hockey,
Canada is,
Dowbiggin argues, a land of compelling and surprising - even ugly and embarrassing
-
contradictions.
In a series of essays that is a road trip across the nation's cultural landscape,
he shows how the
national passion of hockey reflects - or deflects - the issues of globalization,
regionalism,
anti-
Americanism, militarism, violence, racism and greed.
Why are Canadians, for instance, such strenuous advocates of pacifism and non-militarism
around
the world while simultaneously embracing - and promoting - the world's most
vicious
and violent
brand of hockey? It's not the Americans who popularize violence in hockey. It's
us.
Dowbiggin comes to terms with the absurd hero worship of The Great One. Or why Canadians
so
smugly spoof American ignorance while making a cultural icon of Don Cherry.
Is it because
in a
nation without rules or standards he still stands for something, however distasteful?
The Meaning of Puck is a funny, acidic, irreverent, argumentative and often infuriating
but always
thought-provoking look into the fabric of a nation straining to keep old traditions
alive and
incorporate new national myths.