Curling reflects the temperament Canadians claim for themselves

The argument

The second argument for curling concerns what the sport expresses. Proponents note that Canadians commonly describe their national character in terms of restraint, courtesy, patience and cooperation, and argue that curling is the game that embodies those qualities in its rules and conventions. Players call their own fouls, concede when beaten rather than playing out a lost match, and are expected to acknowledge an opponent's good shot; the game is decided by placement and anticipation across many turns rather than by force or speed, and a team must talk through each decision as it is made. Proponents argue that this is not decoration but the structure of the game. Because a stone's value depends on where everything else lies, curling rewards thinking several turns ahead and accepting a modest position now for an advantage later, which proponents take to be a recognisably Canadian disposition towards patience over display. The sweeping, meanwhile, makes the outcome of any one player's throw depend on the labour of teammates who did not make it. They conclude that this is what a symbol should be chosen for. An official sport is a statement about what a country values, not a measurement of its viewing figures, and on that test curling says something specific: that the game worth honouring is cooperative, self-policed, open to anyone and decided by judgement. Proponents argue that a country choosing its emblem should choose the one that describes how it would wish to be understood.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those favouring hockey reply that the national character described here is a flattering self-image rather than a fact, and that choosing a symbol to match it produces an emblem of how Canadians would like to be seen instead of how they actually spend their winters. They add that hockey has its own well-developed codes of conduct and teamwork, that courtesy conventions exist in many sports without making any of them national, and that a symbol nobody recognises cannot make a statement about anything.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A national character described in terms of restraint and courtesy is a self-image rather than a finding, and the premise takes it as established. Choosing a symbol to match it yields an emblem of how a country would like to be seen rather than of how it is. [Rejecting P2] The conventions described are real and are not peculiar to curling, since self-policing, concession and acknowledging an opponent's good play exist in golf, cricket and much amateur sport without making any of them national. [Rejecting P3] That a symbol expresses values rather than measuring popularity is asserted against the opposing position rather than argued for, and a symbol most citizens neither play nor follow closely would express those values to nobody.