Canada Post has created a new set of stamps all about hockey.
Six famous hockey defencemen will each be featured on a stamp.
The defencemen played on the “original six” hockey teams. The “original six” were the teams in the NHL (National Hockey League) before it expanded in 1967.
The new stamps feature: Bobby Orr (Boston Bruins), Tim Horton (Toronto Maple Leafs—yes, “that” Tim Horton), Doug Harvey (Montreal Canadiens), Red Kelly (Detroit Red Wings), Harry Howell (New York Rangers) and Pierre Pilote (Chicago Blackhawks).
Another set of six stamps features the zamboni—the iconic ice cleaning machine. In the set, seven zambonis are decked out in the team colours of the seven Canadian teams in the NHL: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
“Hockey is Canada’s passion,” said the president of Canada Post, Deepak Chopra, on its website.
“The six hockey legends… redefined the defensive position at a golden time in the sport’s history,” said Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport (the government ministry responsible for Canada Post).
“Hockey transcends sport in Canada,” she said. “It’s part of our very fabric.”
Related link
Visit the Canada Post website to find out more about the stamps.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Jonathan Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Canada Post is commemorating the legends and icons of hockey. If you could choose an event or an activity to immortalize on a stamp, what would you choose? Why?
Draw a picture of one of your stamps to show what it would look like.
Reading Prompt: Extending Understanding
Deepak Chopra, the CEO of Canada Post, said that, “Hockey is Canada’s Passion.” Do you believe that this is true? What experiences have you had that support or challenge this statement?
Primary
Express personal opinions about ideas presented in texts (OME, Reading: 1.8).
Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.8).
Intermediate
Extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Language Feature: Metaphor
A metaphor is a comparrison that goes beyond saying what it is is like. A metaphor makes a comparison by stating that the subject is the same as another object.
With this explanation isn place, interpret Lisa Raitt’s comment:
Hockey transcends sport in Canada… It’s part of our very fabric.
