I was at the Leafs-Bruins game last week at the Air Canada Centre. In the second period, when it was still close, a Leaf was tripped in the Bruin zone but it wasn't called, continuing what the crowd saw as a pattern. The Leafs sagged, as if in protest or pain, the Bruins jumped in, got an odd-man rush and scored.

Someone said, "That was passive-aggressive." It rang true. It's as if the Leafs, expressing the collective mood, were pouting to the officials, "If you don't do your job, we won't do ours." Passive aggression is often counterproductive but it's deeply rooted and hard to restrain. Yet I doubt it would've been noticed if we'd been watching at home, or in a bar. It made me think about the difference between hockey on TV, versus on the spot.

I'd like to treat the national celebration of the return of the Winnipeg Jets -- along with the simultaneous debate over fighting and violence -- as a contemporary case of Depression Culture. Culture during the Great Depression has been widely studied. It included glitzy Hollywood musicals, gangster films, dance marathons, the explosion of radio as a mass medium and the proliferation of sports teams, leagues and superstars.