Hockey players have their own language. Sort of.
University of Rochester linguist Andrew Bray researched fake Canadian accents in the hockey world, which he found very common across the entire U.S. among players.
“That Canadian-ness was immediately tied to the sport, and the number of players coming from Canada was so high that I think early on if you were an American that managed to make the professional levels of hockey, you probably would kind of have some sort of pressure to accommodate the Canadians you because you were one American in a room of maybe 19 other Canadians,” Bray said.
Bray says that U.S. hockey players have borrowed the language while using hockey jargon, but overall, don’t follow the typical rules of pronunciation. This means they’re trying to sound like other hockey players, and not trying to sound like Canadians.
