The following BBC article by Catalan journalist Walter Oppenheimer originally dealt with the effect of the Spanish World Cup victory on Spanish national unity; however, I have "adapted" it to the Canadian context.
I would be stupid to claim that the Olympic gold medal in men's hockey is anywhere near the same level as the World Cup, but there is no denying that hockey at the Winter Olympics has become the de facto World Cup tournament for the sport and is militantly followed across the entire country.
The Québec political situation within the confederation of Canada has often been compared to the Catalan one within the Spanish republic - so much so that there was even a 2009 documentary on the subject, additionally looking at the Scottish situation within the UK. As the simple edits (Catalan -> Québécois, Spain -> Canada, football -> hockey, etc.) I've made to the article demonstrate, maybe these comparisons do indeed deserve to be made...
Original article here. All edits in italics...
Viewpoint: Does hockey unite Canada?
Is hockey helping to unite Canada? Can the Canadian Hockey Gold Medal victory achieve what no politician has been able to do for decades, if not centuries? I don't think so, I'm afraid.
Victory in Vancouver was fantastic news. It will cheer up a country moderately depressed after the recession, inject a lot of confidence and help the Canadian people to go out and spend more and boost the recovery a bit. It may even help the unemployed - 8% of the working population - to look to the future in a better mood. But it's not going to end the so-called Québec problem.
Pragmatic patriotism
I'm Québecois myself, despite my name. I was born and raised in Montréal, but I'm not a patriot. Not a Canadian patriot, nor a Québecois one. Borders are not my cup of tea - I love to speak French in Toronto and English in Québec City. So I think I understand what the Québécois want, but I have a sense of perspective. And I love hockey. And the Habs [Montréal] in particular. The Canadian team, too. As millions of Québecois do.
Some Québécois hate the Canadian team, but most of them don't. Equally, some Québécois want independence but most of them don't. They might be ready to support it one day if necessary, but not yet, because they don't feel they need to be outside of Canada.
Most Québécois are souverainistes, which is something rather different from pro-independence: they love Québec more than they love Canada, but they don't hate Canada. The same happens with the Canadian team: they support the squad, but they are not prepared to put the Canadian team before les Canadiens de Montréal, for example. It has always been like that.
Politicians and the media claim these days that the key to the Canadian victory in Vancouver was unity - that it shows how important and easy it is to bury regional political differences.
The day before millions celebrated victory against the USA right across Canada - including in Montréal and Québec City - more than a hundred thousand people demonstrated in Montréal against a judicial decision to reduce the powers of the Québécois parliament. This problem is not going to disappear just because the mood has improved. Québécois celebrate the squad's victory and the rest of Canada happily accepts that Québécois players were the key to success.
All this is very welcome but it is not even new. The same happened in 1976, when the Olympic Games was a great success and Montréal was full of Québécois and Canadian flags. Optimism took hold of Canada, but the Québec problem didn't change one bit.
There was just one paragraph I couldn't make work. Canada never had a dictator, nor would it ever neglect physical power in selecting its hockey team!
I had to make a few additional changes because the article was set against the backdrop of a Spain in deep economic turmoil, a situation that differs in many ways from our current one in Canada.
