Place Identity and Sport Tourism: The Case of the Heritage Classic Ice Hockey Event

Sport is an important factor in the construction of place identity. This is particularly evident in the case of nostalgia based sport events that have been consciously developed in an attempt to influence destination image. It is unclear, however, just how much influence attraction planners have on identity in the face of varying media interpretations. This paper examines the way that place identity was constructed by local, national, and international media sources in the case of the Heritage Classic – an outdoor professional hockey game played in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 22 November 2003. Findings show that local, national and international media all bought into the nostalgia theme. Local media saw the game as epitomising the ‘good old days’ of prairie hockey. The national press was more critical and tended to either expropriate the event as a national one or to dismiss the event as being peripheral. Internationally, the event was seen as uniquely Canadian and compared to a Norman Rockwell painting in terms of its nostalgic effect. Interestingly, while the event was often seen as reflecting the authentic roots of the sport, it was presented and interpreted in a way that was neither place nor time specific.