Hockey is where Canada competes with the world and is understood through it

The argument

A second argument for hockey turns on its place in how Canada is seen and sees itself. Proponents note that national identity is formed partly in comparison with other countries, and that hockey is the arena in which Canada expects to be measured against the strongest opposition and to prevail. The country's self-understanding as a northern nation of a particular toughness and skill, they argue, is carried largely through that expectation, and no other sport provides anything comparable. Proponents argue that this gives the designation practical content. An official sport is invoked at ceremonies, in schools, in the framing of public campaigns and in representations of the country abroad, and it works only if the thing named is recognised by the audience. Hockey is recognised internationally as Canadian in a way that no other candidate is, so naming it allows the designation to do something rather than merely sit on a statute. They acknowledge the obvious objection, that popularity does not confer merit, and answer it by narrowing the claim. The argument is not that hockey is the best sport, nor that it is the most accessible, but that an official sport is a symbol and that the test for a symbol is whether it communicates. On that test proponents hold that hockey already functions as the shorthand for Canada, at home and abroad, and that a designation naming anything else would describe an aspiration rather than the country as it is.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those favouring curling reply that choosing a symbol for its recognition abroad lets other countries decide what Canada is, and that a designation should reflect how Canadians live rather than how they are packaged for export. They add that the argument concedes the substantive points, accepting that hockey is neither the most accessible nor the most widely played sport, and that defining the national game by elite international competition excludes the great majority of the population from the thing said to represent them.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That identity is formed through international comparison is asserted, and it makes the designation turn on elite competition in which almost no citizen takes part. The premise selects the narrowest available basis for a national symbol. [Rejecting P3] Recognition abroad is offered as the test of a symbol, which hands the choice to audiences outside the country. A designation meant to say what a country values cannot be settled by what others already assume about it. [Rejecting C] The argument concedes that hockey is neither the most accessible nor the most widely played candidate and rests the conclusion on communication alone. On that reasoning any sufficiently familiar stereotype would qualify, which is weaker ground than the conclusion needs.