Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the NASSS Outstanding Book Award Hockey and multiculturalism are often noted as defining features of Canadian culture; yet, rarely are we forced to question the relationship and tensions between these two social constructs. This book examines the growing significance of hockey in Canada’s South Asian communities. The
Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi broadcast serves as an entry point for a broader consideration of South Asian experiences in hockey culture based on field work and interviews conducted with hockey players, parents, and coaches in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. This book seeks to inject more “color” into hockey’s historically white dominated narratives and representations by returning hockey culture to its multicultural roots. It encourages alternative and multiple narratives about hockey and cultural citizenship by asking which citizens are able to contribute to the webs of meaning that form the nation’s cultural fabric.
Trade Review"
Changing on the Fly will force a rethinking of race, hockey, and the politics of citizenship in the social margins. In this pioneering text, Szto’s rich intertextuality highlights the competing and contradictory nature of race and representation in sport. There is nothing else like it." -- Stanley Thangaraj * author of Desi Hoop Dreams *
"
Changing on the Fly offers an original, powerful analysis of the hockey rink and the racial, national, gendered, and political landscape. Szto's ability to build on existing scholarship all while carving out new areas of analysis and her centering of South Asian Canadians' voices will change the ways we talk about sport, about hockey and about the (South) Asian Diaspora. Stzo is a force who will shape discussions in sports studies for decades to come. The future of sports studies is in good hands with Stzo leading the way." -- David Leonard * author of Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field *
"A groundbreaking book. Courtney Szto’s insightful study of hockey’s growing significance in Canadian South Asian communities, as well as challenges faced by racialized Canadians when they play the game, makes an important contribution to the analysis of contemporary Canadian society." -- Richard Gruneau * Simon Fraser University *
"This is a desperately-needed intervention from our most influential scholar of race and hockey through both a systematic and nuanced analysis of how multiculturalism and racism shape Canada and its beloved sport, and a powerful account of how those dynamics are experienced." -- Nathan Kalman-Lamb * author of Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport *
"Interview: Dr. Courtney Szto, author of "Changing on the Fly: Hockey Through the Voices of South Asian Canadians"
https://www.burnitalldownpod.com/episodes/interview-dr-courtney-szto-author-of-changing-on-the-fly-hockey-through-the-voices-of-south-asian-canadians * Burn It All Down podcast *
"
Changing on the Fly interrogates the culture of hockey honestly, and from a place of love, offering a critique that is meant to change the nature of the sport so that everyone — not just white, straight Canadian men and boys — can truly have a place in it." * The Tyee *
"The groundbreaking work of Courtney Szto in
Changing on the Fly captures the multiple ways that the Canadian national pastime of ice hockey constitutes an important site to examine the essential izing and shifting realms of race and belonging....[A] call to action and a demand to think about race critically in relation to sport and the nation.
Changing on the Fly destabilizes the normative investments in sport and the nation while articulating forms of citizenship that can be liberating. With the increasing discussion and silence around race in professional sports, this book is vital to understanding the expansive infrastructure that secures whiteness and excludes communities of color."
* Sociology of Sport Journal *
Table of ContentsContents
Dedication - iii
List of Acronyms - vii
Acknowledgements - 1
Introduction - 2
Complicating Canadian Culture - 7
Research Methods - 13
Overview of the Book - 17
Chapter 1 Myth Busting: Hockey, multiculturalism, and Canada - 21
Myth #1: Hockey is Canada - 21
Who or what are we integrating? - 26
Myth #2: Canada is a multicultural haven - 31
Whiteness in Canadian hockey - 38
Citizenship - 41
South Asians in Canada - 44
The Space of Surrey - 48
Chapter 2 Narratives from the Screen: Media and cultural citizenship - 53
Hockey Night in Punjabi - 55
Ethnic (Sports) Media - 59
Breaking Barriers - 62
Co-Authoring One’s Existence - 63
Limits of Ethnic Media - 71
Chapter 3 White Spaces, Different Faces: Policing membership at the rink and in the nation - 78
Who belongs in a space? Who is trespassing? - 79
Self-Identification - 88
Brown - 92
Being the Only One - 98
Chapter 4 Racist Taunts of Just Chirping? - 101
Just chirping? - 105
Was it really racist? - 111
An archive of evidence - 119
Chapter 5 South Asian Masculinities and Femininities - 124
The irony of hockey performativity - 124
South Asian masculinities - 132
Verbal trauma and the body - 138
South Asian femininities - 143
The noisiness of women’s hockey - 149
Chapter 6 Hockey Hurdles and Resilient Subjects: Unpacking forms of capital - 157
Navigating forms of capital - 166
Cost, time, and interconnections with other forms of capital - 166
Language and other aspects of cultural capital - 170
The gatekeepers - 175
Assumptions about diversity: Flaws in logic - 181
Meritocratic and resilient subjects - 185
Chapter 7 Racialized Money and White Fragility: Class and resentment in hockey - 192
Model minorities - 193
Throwing money at hockey - 199
White fragility - 204
Brown out hockey: Capitalism at its best - 209
Chapter 8 Taking Stock: Public memory and the re-telling of hockey in Canada - 217
Hockey Hall of Fame - 220
The role of media - 223
Writing in: DIY citizenship - 226
Conclusion: A commitment to the future - 232
Shifting labor - 235
Writing the wrong - 239
Appendix A: Qualitative methodology - 241
Appendix B: Participant information - 254
Appendix C: British Columbia competitive hockey structure - 256
References - 258
About the author - 296
