i'm home: some CanCon to celebrate

And how do the players feel about it
this combination of ballet and murder?
For years a Canadian specific
to salve the anguish of inferiority
by being good at something the Americans aren't
And what's the essence of a game like this
which takes a ten-year fragment of a man's life
replaced with love that lodges in his brain
                   and substitutes for reason?

- from "Hockey Players" by Al Purdy