Famous for a Time

Famous for a Time celebrates Canadian athletes and sporting history.

The cultural impact of sport on a nation is not slight. Famous for a Time explores a number of important, if not well remembered Canadian athletes and the sports they played to help explain the nation’s complicated history, sporting and otherwise. It is an exploration that reveals the socio-cultural trends that have shaped Canada since Confederation.

Through the prism of some exceptional athletes, the prevailing attitudes of many Canadians toward issues such as class, race, memory, manliness, femininity, and national identity are laid bare. Here, from the sidelines, we find how these attitudes have changed — or not, as the case may be — over time.

From team sports such as lacrosse, baseball, and cricket, to Canada's cycling craze, track and field, and boxing, each chapter offers insight to an important aspect of the nation’s narrative. The winners and losers of Canada’s games simply mirror the larger questions that have faced Canadian society across three centuries.