Troubling Bodies: “The Canadian Girl,” the Ice Rink, and the Banff Winter Carnival

Abstract

This study considers the politics of ex/inclusion and access to the socially constituted ice rink and how ideological meanings about athleticism, physicality, femininity, and masculinity that these dynamic processes (re)produce are attributed (in often troubling ways) to bodies in specific sport spaces. By considering the political economy of women’s hockey at the Banff Winter Carnival within the context of women’s hockey in Alberta in the 1920s and 1930s, the author discusses how women’s bodily practices as hockey players have significance beyond the outdoor rinks at the carnival in that they signify the extent to which women’s bodies have become temporarily attached to the “Canadian” practice of hockey. These moments reflect political circumstances that enable this attachment and illuminate the complex tensions that develop when bodies not expected to enter certain spaces do so.