Jäästä herännyt kansa : urheilijalla politikointia Québecissä ja Kanadassa

Författare

• Joose Palonen

Abstract

In this article I read Roch Carrier’s best-selling book Le Rocket (English translation: Our Life with the Rocket) as a series of political moves in a struggle about national identities, history and politics in Québec and Canada. Carrier writes about his hero, the legendary ice hockey player Maurice ”Rocket” Richard (1921–2000) and treats him as a central figure in the history of French-speaking people in Canada. Indeed, Carrier claims that Richard changed the course of history and transformed the imagination and political horizons of the French Canadians. A detailed analysis of Carrier’s text in its historical, cultural and political context opens an interesting perspective into politics of Quebec and Canada. Carrier’s use of narrative strategies, national identity categories and interpretations of history contribute to a larger historico-political movement that I call the Québécois identity project. This is politics that is debated in the taverns, bookshops and hockey rinks of Montreal and Québec. It is relevant to anyone who is interested in the different forms of nationalism, the role of the nationstate, or the interesting experiment with multinational, multicultural or federal democrazy in Canada.