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Sports & Recreation General

Men at Play

A Working Understanding of Professional Hockey

by (author) Michael Robidoux

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2001
Category
General, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773522206
    Publish Date
    Feb 2001
    List Price
    $29.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773521698
    Publish Date
    Mar 2001
    List Price
    $95.00

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Where to buy it

Description

Players dedicate their lives to the goal of playing professional hockey and teams demand total commitment from their players, giving them complete control over almost all aspects of the players' lives. With the enormous labour turnover in the AHL and the surplus labour pool, players are extremely vulnerable: they must perform well or be replaced by the scores of other men willing to do the same job. With limited education and limited life skills, players seldom meet people who are not connected to the game and, when they do, they do so with trepidation. The constructed universe of the game consumes the players so that, in spite of any wealth they may accumulate, they often know nothing other than the game and have invested everything in an occupation where their services quickly become obsolete. Far from the sensational memoirs of those few players who make it to the top, Robidoux's Men at Play offers a bracing inside look at the dynamics of the fastest game on earth.

About the author

Editorial Reviews

"Robidoux employs an impressive array of ideas from sociology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, and feminist theory to interpret the homosocial, occupational culture of professional hockey players." Thomas Dunk, author of It's a Working Man's Town: Male Working-Class Culture "Men at Play is a well-researched and documented study, offering the first ethnographic study of the lives of professional hockey players. Robidoux completely explodes the myth of hockey players as spoiled and overpaid, and shows the enormous stress the players face, notably those players who are between the minors and the NHL." Jean Harvey, School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa