Soul of a Nation

• Main Author: Balmer, Randall
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of North Carolina Press 2022
• Subjects: Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469670065.003.0004

Ice hockey, which evolved from lacrosse, has become Canada’s game. A dentist in Montréal, George Beers, argued at the time of Canada’s confederation in 1867 that Canada needed its own game; cricket, he argued was too British. Instead, Canada needed a rough-and-tumble game that reflected the wild Canadian landscape. He argued that lacrosse was that game, played initially by First Nations people but adopted by Canadians. Beers, a Presbyterian who believed that everything should be done “decently and in order,” codified rules for lacrosse and established boundaries for the field, thereby “domesticating” the Indigenous game. Although great controversy still surrounds the precise origins of ice hockey, it developed from lacrosse and continues to reflect the rugged, frontier-justice Canadian society.