National sport culture. Sport declared as national sport by a law National sport A national sport is considered to be an intrinsic part of the culture of a nation. Some sports are "de facto" (not established by law) national sports, as baseball is in the United States and Gaelic games are in the Ireland, while others are "de jure" (established by law) national sports, as lacrosse and ice hockey are in Canada. These sports do not have to be necessarily the most played or most followed, which would be either association football or cricket in all but a few countries are widely
Sports in Canada games, Canada is usually one of the top nations in terms of medals won. Canada is traditionally strong in the sports of ice hockey, speed skating (especially the short track variation), figure skating and most of the national men's and women's curling teams have won medals since the sport was added to the Olympic program. Because Canada failed to win any gold medals at the 1976 Summer and 1988 Winter games, soon after Vancouver-Whistler was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics several organizations including Sport Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee began collaborations to launch "Own the Podium – 2010", a