Geoff Russ: Multiculturalism is a terrible reason to drop hockey for soccer

Canada is on the road to becoming just one more soccer country. Even if we don’t want that, the federal government seems intent on driving Canadian sports in that direction anyway.

A recent survey from Abacus Data contained exciting news for those who think kicking a ball around denotes modernity and sophistication. Following Canada’s World Cup run, 56 per cent of adults now have some interest in the sport, up from 48 per cent two months ago.

Soccer is also the favourite sport of 12 per cent of Canadians, second to hockey which is at 32 per cent. However, among 18 to 29 year olds, soccer is the most popular sport by a small margin of two percent, and the favourite of 28 per cent of those not born in Canada, as hockey languishes at 13 per cent.

Already, Canada Soccer is bragging that soccer is the “sport of the future”; a new pastime for a new Canada and new Canadians, and many are nodding their heads.

“Canada’s World Cup run includes a lot of new Canadians who don’t have a long connection to hockey, and demonstrates to us and the world how successful is Canadian multiculturalism, how historic ideas of what Canadians look like need to be updated,” wrote journalist Stephen Maher on X.

Surely, Canadians should be very proud of the national team’s performance in the World Cup. They thrilled audiences on home soil, earning our first World Cup win and first place in the round of 16, as people in Canada packed the streets to celebrate.

Still, it would be terrible if the rise of Canadian soccer comes as a package deal with the decline of hockey, as if basic competence in the one sport means forgetting the sport that Canadians excel in and can truly call their own. This is neither an inevitable nor admirable trade, but governments and institutions can ram that rotten deal through if they wish.

Officially, hockey is Canada’s national winter sport, but had been the national game for generations before it became a Parliamentary statue in 1994. Whether on ponds, backyards, or summer streets, Canadians across the country still play the game, imagining themselves as players for the Montreal Canadiens or Toronto Maple Leafs.

But, youth participation in hockey is well below its peak in the late 2000s, as the cost of equipment and travel are simply too steep for many families. Soccer is a natural alternative for parents seeking to keep their children in sports, as it only requires a ball, an unfrozen surface and objects to serve as a net.

Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the “largest-ever” investment into sport promising upgrades for stadiums, fields, and parks, with the goal of helping more Canadians move from local playgrounds to the national soccer team. It also includes a pledge to fund a Canada Soccer National Training Centre.

Having the national government fund sports is perfectly normal, but it is outrageous if none of this $1 billion investment ends up going towards hockey. A dollar spent on an indoor soccer field is a dollar not spent on maintaining a rink in a small town that otherwise cannot afford repairs.

If the government’s policy is dictated by the fact that soccer is a cheaper sport to play, hockey will lose via accounting, and the federal government will call soccer’s subsidized growth “organic.” They will justify it by saying that soccer is accessible, diverse, and universal, and that the growth of the game here signals some kind of civic maturity. Regarding soccer, the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 has proudly stated that, “migrants in Canada use their connections with the game to build communities and to make and remake a space that is home.”

It is apparently a net positive that Canada’s sporting culture will blend in with the rest of the world, rather than preferring Canada retain the character that makes it stand out.

Any country’s sporting destiny can be manufactured. It may surprise many to learn that France’s status as soccer superpower is a relatively recent phenomenon, as are its rabid fanbase. In fact, France’s history of sports was marked by a lack of soccer hegemony, with cycling and rugby enjoying more prestige prior to the past few decades.

Between 1958 and the 1980s, France’s soccer was in protracted decline, with the national team failing to qualify for the World Cup in 1962, 1970, and 1974, during a period when its resources for professional players were weak. In response, the French state financed a massive revival, expanding soccer facilities and creating a legion of state-paid trainers and technicians to identify and cultivate talent for France’s football federation.

By the end of the 1990s, soccer was France’s most popular and defining sport, and the most popular game both in the field and in the national imagination — none of this was organic.

The cult of progress dictates that fault must be found with what already exists, and that its replacement is at-least a moral upgrade. However, what many called the “future” is so often an excuse for neglect. Canada can be a competitive soccer power, but our national game should always be ice hockey which has gripped the Canadian imagination for longer than soccer has animated the French.

If soccer is the “beautiful game,” hockey is the greatest game. It is also a genuine thrill to play, combining great speed, physicality and a culture of honour and accountability. You have to learn to be tough and to get up when hurt, all of which help to inculcate excellent character in youth and adults alike.

Despite the disappointing finish at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Canada is still the world’s premier hockey nation, but we can only remain so if the country remains committed to it being our national winter sport.

The glorious past of hockey, and the ice it is played upon in winter lets Canadians recognize each other and their forebears in a way that soccer could never. So goes that, and so goes a pastime that connects today’s youth players to those at Montreal’s Victoria Skating Rink in 1877. If any sport has earned the lion’s share of a $1 billion investment, it is not soccer.

Revitalizing Canada’s winter pastime, which creates common ground and connection between a logging town on Vancouver Island to the ramparts of Quebec City, should be a national priority, as is maintaining our international supremacy in the sport, so shaken at the present time.

This is Canada, and we Canadians play hockey. There are many who evidently prefer that we didn’t. When they rear their ugly heads, what they deserve is a stiff, verbal check into the boards, every single time.

National Post