51. Sport
Based on a prompt from a 100 Themes Challenge I'm trying to do.
Disclaimer: If I owned Axis Powers Hetalia, it'd be a lot slashier, Canada would be more than an afterthought and I'd know Japanese. As none of these things are true, I don't own, so don't sue.
It was a sport, or America called it one anyway. To Russia and Canada though, it wasn't merely a sport. It was The Sport. "It" was ice hockey of course.
Canada was well known for his passion for hockey; he'd supposedly invented it (Korea claimed otherwise but no one believed him). A Canadian city wasn't really either Canadian or a city if it didn't have a hockey team; with all the different levels this was never really a problem.
Russia was known for the powerful dominating forwards and goalies he produced, that were NHL stars if they decided to leave the Kontinental Hockey League. Hockey stars were respected and recognized as celebrities in Russia.
Both countries generally loved hockey from the casual fan to the religiously fanatic. But no matter how he looked at it, Alfred thought, it had probably been a bad idea to call it 'that dumb game.'