Whether you're a fan of the prime minister or not, I think most Canadians would agree with his thoughtful analysis of our national game, which he sketches out some detail in an interview with Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated:
Although there are important sports in Canada — our own football, lacrosse — nothing does compete with hockey. It's on a different plane, to the extent where, rightly or wrongly, people see these sports as deeply reflective of the character of the nation [and] certainly deeply reflective of the sports culture of the nation. And sports culture is an important part of any nation. You can say soccer in many countries [is] just as important but … nobody has a national claim to soccer the way Canada has a national claim to hockey or the United States has a national claim to baseball. They define the country in a unique way.
It says, first and foremost, we're a northern country. It's an important part of our character. I was recently chatting about hockey with [Russia] President Medvedev. And, you know, we're the two coldest countries on earth, and not by coincidence, the two best hockey countries. Fairly consistently. It does say that. I think it also says something about the character. Hockey is a fast, aggressive, tough sport and that's an important part of the Canadian psychology and history. It's sometimes forgotten because Canadians are thought of as peace-loving and fair-minded and pleasant — which I think we are — but that's not inconsistent with tough and aggressive and ambitious, which is also part of the national character.
The other thing I should mention about hockey is this: From the fairly early days, [it was] culturally cross-cutting as well. It's English and French. It's pretty well all regions of the country. Ethnic communities. One of the first things you see [is] immigrants start to belong to Canadian society when their kids start to come to the hockey rink. Then the parents start to integrate with the other parents. It crosses social class lines. So it's a great common denominator. It really is.