“I know China very well, President Xi is a friend of mine, I know him very well…The first thing they’re going to do is say you are not allowed to play ice hockey anymore. That’s not good. Canada’s not going to like that,” the president added.
Archive article: https://archive.ph/JAX75#selection-1443.0-1443.242
There are different kinds of hockey though.
If I say I went to school yesterday. People don’t think driving school.
If I say I played hockey yesterday, you wouldn’t think I played it on grass would you?
I’d ask, “Ice hockey or field hockey?” because there’s no way to tell until you specify.
Canadian here, I’ve never once met someone refer to field hockey as hockey. Actually I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone mention field hockey at all, lol
Trump isn’t Canadian.
As a Canadian I have only once had the experience of someone talking about playing field hockey. Going on 30 something years.
Hockey is ice hockey, I might be surprised about which league you were talking about.
Trump isn’t Canadian though?
Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that field hockey was one of the major league sports that can be found playing in any sports bar in America provided it’s in season. That must be the big difference between Americans and Canadians. Thanks for clearing that up!
The point wasn’t that field hockey is a major league sport (though it is a popular recreational sport - my high school had a field hockey team but not an ice hockey team, for example).
The point is that this is a clear dialectal difference between some speakers of American and Canadian English, and so criticizing Trump for this, of all the things you should be criticizing him for, is stupid (and ignorant)!
And my point is that most Americans know of hockey just like most Canadians do, and while there may be more Americans playing field hockey than Canadians, I expect most Americans also refer to ice hockey as hockey, and field hockey as field hockey. Unless they’re an ignoramus with dementia, in which case, here we are.
One can also reference how the promoters of the leagues refer to themselves.
https://www.usahockey.com/
https://www.usafieldhockey.com/
Both the people running ice hockey and field hockey in America recognize that, in general for the country, hockey by itself refers to ice hockey and not field hockey.
Also, while there may be some dialectical differences in this respect between Canadians and Americans, that likely doesn’t apply to someone who grew up in New York City. Moreover, his education until his twenties was gained in New York City, so it’s difficult to say it was some quirk of his education. So how they refer to hockey in some region of America that hasn’t touched ice that wasn’t floating in a drink isn’t really relevant to this discussion.