Talking hockey is nothing new for Professor Andrew Holman, who leads Bridgewater State University’s Canadian Studies program. But next week’s talk will be a little bit different: Dr. Holman will be a featured panelist in an international forum held in Russia, and he’ll be presenting alongside some of the sport’s greatest legends.
Dr. Holman, who teaches a first-year seminar course on hockey’s impact on culture and society, is one of the scheduled presenters at the World Hockey Forum in Moscow, which will be held from Dec. 15-17. The author and editor of three hockey books will be speaking about the intersection of hockey with culture and society, especially as it pertains to North American literature.
“It’s a funny connection of an academic subject with something that many people think has no bearing on literary endeavors,” said Dr. Holman, who has taught at Bridgewater since 1996 and coached the Bears hockey team from 1998 to 2011. “But in the past 30 years, there has been serious fiction and academic study on its meanings.”
Dr. Holman is also there to listen to a host of other speakers — many of whom he has idolized as a lifelong hockey fan. Scheduled to attend and speak are legendary players such as
Phil Esposito, Teemu Selanne, Pavel Bure, Vladislav Tretiak, Alexey Yashin, Jari Kurri, Igor Kravchuk and coach Mike Keenan.
“I will get to meet some of my heroes from when I was growing up,” Dr. Holman said. “But it’s also an opportunity to stretch the boundaries of hockey talk a little bit, to reiterate a point that has been made before but hasn’t reach a lot of large audiences.”
For slightly smaller audiences at Bridgewater State — where Dr. Holman organized a hockey forum in 2005 — the Canadian native joked he’s been teaching a “bait-and-switch” course focused on hockey.
“Students think it’s going to be hockey-fight videos,” said Dr. Holman. “But it’s based on bigger, broader topics like race, masculinity and nationalism.”
While in Moscow, Dr. Holman won’t have much time for sightseeing. But he has managed to book some ice time, as he and several Canadian expatriates are scheduled to play a pickup hockey game in CSKA Ice Palace.
Dr. Holman’s credits include co-authoring the forthcoming book, The Coolest Game: The Global History of Ice Hockey, as well as editing Canada’s Game: Hockey and Identity and The Same But Different: Hockey in Quebec. (Story by Charlie Peters, University News & Media)
