Source

Bibliographic data

Lithwick, Barry; Thompson, Nora: Cultures in Canada. Toronto: Maclean-Hunter Learning Materials Company, repr. with changes [Nachdr. mit Änderungen] ed., 1979 [1976], 9–10.

Sports or Church?


[p. 9]

[right column]

[…]

I WANT TO PLAY HOCKEY

George moved with his family to Canada about a year ago. He is eleven years old and in the fifth grade at school. George is very good in sports and although hockey was not a sport played in the country in which he originally lived, the game is now of great interest to him.

George has attended local hockey clinics and recently joined a hockey team as a regular defenceman.

[p. 10]

[left column]

However, a problem now faces George and threatens to end his short hockey career.

George : Father, I made the hockey team. Our first game is in two weeks.

Father: That’s good, George. How often do you play?

George: Usually about once a week. Then there are practices, of course. Can you take turns driving some of the boys to the Sunday morning practices? All the parents are going to help.

Father: Sunday morning? What time are the practices?

George: 10:00 A.M. It takes about half an hour to drive to the arena.

Father: You know very well you go to church at that time. You’ll have to miss those Sunday practices.

George: I can’t. they won’t let me play unless I’m at the practices. Sunday is the only time that ice is free for our team.

Father: I can’t help that. Church is far moreimportant than any hockey practice. You are not going to start missing Church just to play some game. Understand that now.

George: But everyone else on the team can go. Their parents are even taking them to the arena. – I have to go!

Father: You have to go to Church. That is the end of it. It can’t be that

[right column]

important. Why, I had never so much as heard of this game until we came here.

LOOKING AT THE FACTS

1. Do you agree with the father’s decision? Why?

2. Might George’s father have felt differently if he were born in Canada? Explain your answer.

3. In a paragraph, describe one way that this conflict might be resolved successfully, and in another paragraph, one way that it might be concluded unsuccessfully.

[…]

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