INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

“WHAT’S THAT IT’S ALL ABOUT?”: TELEVISION,
CANADIAN ICE HOCKEY, AND THE PURSUIT OF GOLD
Mr Russell FIELD (CAN)
Discourses, preferred understandings, and naturalizing
tendencies are evident when one analyzes various
televisual representations of the Olympics.
Richard Gruneau (1989b: 7-28)
After the medal presentations following the men’s ice hockey gold
medal match at the 2002 Winter Olympics, forward Ryan Smyth and
his teammates from the victorious Canadian team returned to their
dressing room to continue the celebrations that had begun on the ice at
the conclusion of their 5-2 victory over the United States.
Documentary film cameras captured the festivities as Smyth walked
into the dressing room, looked straight into a camera, held up the gold
medal that was draped around his neck, and announced: “This is what
it’s all about, right here.”
But is it? Is capturing a gold medal what Olympic competition is
all about? While there is little doubt that the pursuit of excellence
within athletics is a core value of the Olympic Movement, as Bruce
Kidd notes, “questions are raised when the single-minded pursuit of
excellence threatens to undermine other goals” (Kidd, 1992: 6-7). The
“other goals” of Olympism become further obscured when the
representational lens of the television camera is added to the mix. The
explosive growth of the sport media in the twentieth century was due,
in part, to the emphasis it placed on winning over participating and its
ability to create heroes out of victors. These elements of the sport
media are exacerbated during the television coverage of Olympic
Games, as local broadcasters balance promoting the values of
Olympism against beaming home images of national interest-most
often, the successes of domestic athletes. As Nancy Rivenburgh has
observed, constructing a nation’s identity within the Games is a key
element of local Olympic telecasts. She notes: “The Olympic Games
is all about the convergence of social identities … of the host and
those of the participating and viewing nations. Television is a
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