| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 51

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Colin D. Howell, Blood, Sweat, Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001)

THIS IS A LITTLE BOOK with a big title. There are three words to describe Howell's book: vital, topical, and intelligent. It introduces a popular audience, rather than an academic one, to the developments of and critiques in Canadian sport and culture. This is an interesting read of 150 pages organized into 6 chapters: the Field, Blood, Respectability, Money, Cheers, Bodies, and Nation. The book is packed with little known historical facts and a strong thesis showing the interconnectedness of sport and national development. Overall, the book qualifies as an innovative and highly accessible survey text of Canadian sport history.	1
There is much to like about this book. It is smartly written, rich in description, and provides the reader with a new sport map. Howell gradually unfolds this map and with a gentle prodding of the readers' imaginations, he leads us through some of the high and low points of the last two centuries of Canadian sport.	2
In the introduction, Howell identifies some of the themes of sport in the land that was to become Canada. By treating sport as one of several commodities within a developing culture, Howell explores sport's purposes as it influences and is influenced by culture. To do this, he addresses not only the relationship of sport to economics and an ever-widening internationalism, but also introduces the complex ties between sport and gender, sport and the relationship among generations of Canadians, sport and urbanization, and sport and class. While many of the themes have been covered in other texts, Howell's treatment of the themes by using specific sport examples is a real plus. The style of writing brings each theme alive and leaves the reader with a gift of lasting images of Canada in its earlier times.	3
In the following chapters, the author follows a roughly chronological pattern. The chapter, "Blood," brings the reader from the time of Confederation, a time of unorganized sport/recreation, to the more organized sport characteristic of the post-World War II period. While necessarily superficial, Howell takes time to look at some of the more obscure sporting activities that accompanied the development of a market economy in Canada. For example, blood sports such as animal baiting and prize fighting come "under the gaze of turn-of-the-century sport reformers," while "defenders of traditional recreation presented their own definitions of 'sportsman.'"( 13) By unpacking some of the values in sport that influence, and in turn, are influenced by culture, Howell presents us with a new way of looking at Canada, the nation. This chapter is weakened a little because some sports he covers do not naturally fall into the blood category, sports such as canoeing, boating, aquatics, sailing, snow-shoeing, sled dog racing, and all Aboriginal Games. Still, the overall theme of ascendant organized sport remains strong.	4
The chapters, "Respectability" and "Money" highlight the explicit move of sport to respectability and financial strength. "In Canada, respectable sports were more likely to involve men rather than women; the English rather than the French, whites rather than Blacks and Native people, Protestants rather than Catholics and middle- rather than working-class athletes."( 28) The importance of basketball, baseball, barnstormers, lacrosse, and Canadian football are examined in some detail and the debates over amateurism and professionalism are introduced. As churches and educators became involved in promoting sport, Howell writes that Canadians consciously used sport for both character-building and as a way of introducing newcomers to what it meant to be Canadian. In addition, as sport became an increasingly urban experience, the influence of industrial capitalism and, in particular, consumerism, Howell posits, was responsible for the organization and discipline in sport. Unfortunately, Howell is unclear about what period or periods of time he is writing about, and it was frustrating to see how little attention he pays to women while dealing with themes of respectability and money.	5
"Cheers" was perhaps the most unsatisfying chapter in this otherwise excellent book. The organizing question is who is supporting sport. The focus is on women more as spectators than performers. For example, in describing the 1928 Olympic experience of the great sprinter Percy Williams, Howell does not even mention how five gold medals won by the Canadian women track stars at the same games captured the nation's attention. He also describes Billie Jean King as "the world's greatest advocate of militant feminism,"(98) a description which may quite surprise militant feminists and other women advocates in sport of the day.	6
In the chapter, "Bodies," Howell calls sport a "contested terrain," (106) and then irreverently says that this is a hackneyed phrase. This quick dismissal suggests that his real understanding of race, sex, class, and sexuality in sport is a somewhat oversimplified and superficial one. He recovers by building a good case for the links between the sporting body, masculinity and femininity, and the overall influence on nation-building. This is the only chapter where women are the primary concern. It is a curious phenomenon in much of the sport literature that historical sporting achievements of women appear in a separate chapter, while those of men are discussed in all the other chapters as if they represent the complete sport picture. It is, what Margrit Eichler calls the "add women and stir" approach. One would have hoped that Howell would have presented a more integrated analysis.	7
Overall, he makes his case that sport was and is an experience of both rural and urban Canadians; that sport involved complex struggles in the building of a complex new nation. Despite the critiques I have identified, I found his analysis refreshing. He has come at the development of sport from a new angle and has included many little known facts about sport in the process. He has a good grasp of the literature, though in his efforts to write an accessible book, he has utilized an unusual referencing style. In sum, he has accomplished his goal of writing sport history for a popular audience.	8
Sandra Kirby University of Winnipeg

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