1. Hockey is more than a game. It"s more than a way of life. In Canada, it"s a portrait of who we are. It"s a window into our very soul. In The Meaning of Puck, best-selling author Bruce Dowbiggin takes a peek into that window and-frankly-it"s not always such a pretty picture. Viewed through the prism of hockey, Canada is--Dowbiggin argues-a land of compelling and surprising... even ugly and embarassing contradictions. In a series of essays that is a road trip across the nation"s cultural landscape, he shows how the national passion of hockey reflects-or deflects-the issues of globalization, regionalism, anti-Americanism, militarism, violence, racism and greed. Why are Canadians, for instance, such strenuous advocates of pacifism and non-militarism around the world while simultaneously embracing - and promoting - the world"s most vicious and violent brand of hockey? As the legion of apologists for Todd Bertuzzi"s thuggish play dramatize, it"s not the Americans who popularize violence...