Not Hockey
Critical Essays on Canada’s Other Sport Literature
Edited by Angie Abdou and Jamie Dopp
Athabasca University Press
In this carefully curated collection of essays, editors Jamie Dopp and Angie Abdou go beyond their first collection, Writing the Body in Motion, to engage with the meaning of sport found in Canadian sport literature. How does “sport” differ from physically risky recreational activities that require strength and skill? Does sport demand that someone win? At what point does a sport become an art? With the aim of prompting reflections on and discussions of the boundaries of sport, contributors explore how literature engages with sport as a metaphor, as a language, and as bodily expression. Instead of a focus on what is often described as Canada’s national pastime, contributors examine sports in Canadian literature that are decidedly not hockey. From skateboarding and parkour to fly fishing and curling, these essays engage with Canadian histories and broader societal understandings through sports on the margin. Interspersed with original reflections by iconic Canadian literary figures such as Steven Heighton, Aritha Van Herk, Thomas Wharton, and Timothy Taylor, this volume is fresh and intriguing and offers new ways of reading the body.
Angie Abdou is the author of seven books and co-editor of Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature. Her first novel, The Bone Cage,was a Canada Reads finalist. Her two memoirs on youth sport hit the Canadian best-seller list. Abdou is associate professor of Creative Writing at Athabasca University and a nationally certified swim coach. Jamie Dopp is associate professor of Canadian literature at the University of Victoria. He is the co-editor with Angie Abdou of Writing the Body in Motion: A Critical Anthology on Canadian Sport Literature and of Now is the Winter: Thinking about Hockey with Richard Harrison. In addition to his critical writing, he is the author of two novels and three collections of poetry.
