Howard Anglin, a former deputy prime minister and veteran political commentator, has never been shy about his affection for Canada’s winter traditions. He grew up hearing the clatter of hockey sticks on frozen ponds and learned early that the country’s sporting heartbeat beats to a different rhythm than the global game.
Since 2021 he has spent almost half a year on the other side of the Atlantic, mostly on Vancouver Island, where the sound of a soccer ball hitting a net is as ubiquitous as the cry of a loon. In England, the sport dominates every conversation, and Anglin found himself constantly reminded that a culture built around a different game was being replaced by one that celebrates a sport he once played only as a boy.
A Personal History with the Beautiful Game
He still remembers the first time he chased a leather sphere across a dusty field in Galt, Ontario, and the thrill of watching European leagues on a grainy television set. Those memories are genuine, but they remain a private hobby, a casual pastime that never grew into a national obsession for him.
Why Soccer Clashes with Canadian Identity
What troubles Anglin is not the sport itself but the way it is being embraced by a country that, in his view, is inverting its own ethos. He points to the acceptance of cheating as an unwritten rule, to a culture he describes as "Third‑Worldist" where graft and grift have become ways of life, and to a growing expectation that Canadians should care about a globalised slop sport that feels foreign to his sense of national spirit.
In his mind, the solution is simple: Canada should double down on hockey, the sport that has always embodied the nation’s values of teamwork, resilience and fair play. Soccer may have a place on the world stage, but it will never truly encapsulate the Canadian story, and that is precisely why the country should focus its energy elsewhere.