And Finally...

In this week’s episode, I dive into a fascinating linguistic quirk of the sports world—why do so many American hockey players sound like fake Canadians?

My obsession with this topic started with research from linguist Andrew Bray. He noticed the phenomenon of “fake Canadian” accents while studying hockey lingo. While he originally set out to analyze hockey slang for its own sake (e.g. “biscuit” for puck or “celly” for celebration), he found himself asking an even bigger question: Why do American players seem to take on Canadian-esque speech?

Bray recorded his conversations with players, analyzing their vowel shifts and pronunciation. He confirmed that many American hockey players adopt features of Canadian English, but not quite enough to pass as actually Canadian. Instead, they end up in this uncanny valley: they sound just Canadian enough for other people to notice, but not enough to blend in. This could be a case of linguistic mirroring, which is when people unconsciously adjust their speech to fit into a social group. Since hockey has such a strong Canadian identity, American players may be picking up on those speech patterns as part of the sport’s culture.

Bray isn’t the only person out there studying “Hockey English.” In fact, one study suggests that even Canadian players are accused of sounding more Canadian than they’re supposed to.