Fantasy and reality come together in sports, and Jamie Dopp argues that nowhere is this blurring of the borders of reality more evident than in Canadian hockey. Using imagination as a unifying theme, Dopp offers in-depth analyses of key texts of hockey literature, with a focus on how these texts reveal the imaginative possibilities of the game. Popular texts like Stompin’ Tom Connors’ “The Hockey Song,” Scott Young’s Scrubs on Skates trilogy, and Roch Carrier’s The Hockey Sweater, as well as important literary texts like Bill Gaston’s The Good Body, Cara Hedley’s Twenty Miles, and Richard Wagamese’s Indian Horse are examined. Dopp’s analysis draws on literary history and methods and explores broader topics such as the role of imagination in human culture, the significance of play, the evolution of sport in Canada and elsewhere, the history of Canada, and the history and social significance of hockey.

Jamie Dopp is associate professor of Canadian literature at the University of Victoria, where he has taught a course in hockey and literature for a number of years. His poetry, fiction, reviews, and scholarly articles have appeared in many journals. He has published two collections of poetry and a novel and in 2009, he co-edited a collection of essays with Richard Harrison called Now is the Winter: Thinking about Hockey.

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