Hockey-playing Prime Ministers and Presidents

[Staniowski]

Mark Carney is almost certain to become Canada's next prime minister on March 9th. He was a back-up goaltender for the Harvard Crimson in the 1980s.

Mike (Lester) Pearson played university hockey at the University of Toronto.

Any other hockey-playing national leaders?

Mark Carney on the campaign trail.

Click to read more...

 

[Albatros]

President Alexander Stubb of Finland played for HIFK until U17 or so before running out of talent. Sweden's former PM Stefan Löfven also played a little bit as a kid.

 

[CMitchelli]

Mark Carney is almost certain to become Canada's next prime minister on March 9th. He was a back-up goaltender for the Harvard Crimson in the 1980s.

Mike (Lester) Pearson played university hockey at the University of Toronto.

Any other hockey-playing national leaders?

View attachment 976096
Mark Carney on the campaign trail.

Did the almost certain next Prime Minister lose a finger on his catching hand?

 

[alko]

You know, that this topic will end in Russia, right?

 

[gretzkyoilers]

You know, that this topic will end in Russia, right?

 

[jigglysquishy]

Stephen Harper played hockey as a youngster, before eventually writing a hockey book. I remember the joke in about 2004-2007 timeframe that Harper played right wing as a kid.

 

[sr edler]

Harper's hockey book is really good from what I've glanced of it, and Eric Zweig said it was good too (I think he did some editing) and I trust him. It looked thoroughly researched.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Harper's hockey book is really good from what I've glanced of it, and Eric Zweig said it was good too (I think he did some editing) and I trust him. It looked thoroughly researched.

It's good but is very dry. It's the exact book I would have expected Harper to write.

 

[Crosby2010]

I mean, we all have seen the clips of Putin. I do have to laugh at it a bit because everyone is petrified of defending him. He gets a lot of room out there when he plays. And whenever he scores the defense always does a last effort lunge towards him at least feigning that they were trying to get him.

John Kerry was never President, but he did and could play hockey. I can remember an article in 2004 in the Hockey news about it.

I'll bet Harper could play, not sure what level he would have gone to. We all know about his aforementioned book.

It surprises me that Canadian leaders didn't play hockey at the level you'd expect.

 

[Albatros]

Putin and Lukashenko are nothing but posers, they never played organized hockey at any level beyond their orchestrated photo sessions with pros while in office.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

One thing Ive wondered about this, why Putin has that intense interest in hockey specifically. As much as Russia seems like a hockey centric nation to us as canadians, from meeting Russians in person my experience was that they often seem 50/50 as likely to be soccer fans more than hockey.

 

[MadLuke]

I would imagine Jean Chrétien not too shy to drop the glove... apparently:

The hockey prime minister

No PM has shown Stephen Harper's passion for the national game - or used it to such advantage

www.theglobeandmail.com

Jean Chrétien was quite athletic. A good golfer and a decent hockey player, he was quick with the elbows and liked to rough it up. Conservatives were of the view that he governed with concussion-like symptoms.

Pearson's apparently was an high level all around athlete.

 

[Albatros]

One thing Ive wondered about this, why Putin has that intense interest in hockey specifically. As much as Russia seems like a hockey centric nation to us as canadians, from meeting Russians in person my experience was that they often seem 50/50 as likely to be soccer fans more than hockey.

I mean, he's been posing in like half the Olympic sports and even beyond that like formula racing. But he broke his collarbone while playing soccer in Finland for a St. Petersburg city administration team before he made it big in politics and I think was never particularly fond of the sport.

 

[kaiser matias]

It's good but is very dry. It's the exact book I would have expected Harper to write.

It's very much an academic book: stiff language, obscure topic, footnotes, and citations to old material no one will look into. As someone who enjoys that type of thing (my book shelves are full of that type of book) I found it great, and it's something Harper should do more of, as he clearly has a talent and passion for it.


As for the topic at hand:

He wasn't a prime minister or president, but former Canadian Governor-General David Johnston was captain of Harvard. He also considered going to a Bruins training camp, but went to Cambridge University instead.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

One thing Ive wondered about this, why Putin has that intense interest in hockey specifically. As much as Russia seems like a hockey centric nation to us as canadians, from meeting Russians in person my experience was that they often seem 50/50 as likely to be soccer fans more than hockey.

I’m wondering if it’s similar to Sweden in a way, that while soccer remains the more practiced, accessible and popular sport, hockey is one were both countries historically have had the greater and more successful teams internationally, and probably the more iconic individuals, more often than not.

The average Russian will perhaps tune into more Fifa World Cup games than Olympic hockey matchups, but they’ve seen more title matchups with Russian hockey teams. Ovechkin is a superstar in his game. If Andrei Arzhavin had remained relevant on the world stage beyond 2008, perhaps we’d have seen a couple more pictures of Putin schmoozing with their football team.