What are the effects of hockey on Canadian identity?

Answer 1

The Sporting News recently ran an excellent article on this subject. One incident it cited was that of an Air Canada flight out of Vancouver scheduled to depart during the Canada/US Olympic Gold medal game. The flight could not leave because the passengers refused to leave the airport sports bar while the game was in progress. The passengers finally boarded when the game went into overtime and the pilot promised to give updates over the public address system. While TSN used this as an example of Canada's passion for the game, many Canadians will view it as indicative of Vancouver's lack of passion. A similar incident occurred during Game1 of the 2004 Western conference Finals between the Calgary Flames and the San Jose Sharks. The main difference being that the pilot could not succeed in getting the Calgarian passengers to board until the game ended, at 18:43 of the first overtime period. All told the flight was over an hour late. And for a much lesser event than an Olympic gold medal game, as the series, and definitely not the Stanley Cup, were not decided by this game.