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For many fans, players and coaches across the country, hockey isn't just a game. It's a religion. The game-day rituals, intense camaraderie of fans and cultural presence of the sport have elevated it to sacred status.

Now, the University of Montreal is taking that holy association to another level with the launch of a new course specifically devoted to examining the link between hockey and religion.

Like religion, hockey binds people together and can "affirm that we are Canadian and we can be proud to be Canadian," said Olivier Bauer, a theology professor at the University of Montreal who will teach the course, beginning in January.

While the parallels between sport and religion have been well-documented in other countries, Prof. Bauer said, there has been a void when it comes to looking at the significance of hockey within Canada.

He hopes the 16-week course will offer a comprehensive look at the role hockey plays in Canadian society and its significance in our culture. Although it may sound tongue-in-cheek, the new course offers pastors-in-training, as well as students from other faculties, a serious look at the meaning of the game and why it invokes comparisons to organized religion. For instance, like going to church, hockey brings a group of people together who might otherwise have nothing in common. Both church and hockey games feature singing, organ playing, and even idol worship in the form of cheering for players on the ice.

The traditions are particularly pronounced in Quebec, where the Montreal Canadiens have always represented an important cornerstone of francophone culture, Prof. Bauer said. For instance, one of the team's nicknames is La Sainte-Flanelle, or the Holy Flannel, referring to the team's jersey. The Hockey Hall of Fame is referred to as a "temple" in French. And there is an old saying in Quebec that the Canadiens are the province's religion.

"The Canadiens [are] a kind of civil religion. It's what puts Québécois together," Prof. Bauer said. "It's really something that belongs to [Quebec]."

But the point of studying the association between religion and hockey isn't merely to point out commonalities. Rather, it's about exploring why the sport has such a strong cultural hold in this country and how it helps provide an identity for many Canadians.

"Every small town in Canada has a rink. That's where people congregate, which is why it's a lot like a church," said Shaune Vetter, who writes a Calgary Flames blog at HockeyBuzz.com. "You spend an hour a week in church. If you have kids in a small town in Canada, you spend hours of every week in the arena. It's where you meet, it's where people congregate, it's where you trade gossip, it's where you swap recipes."

One of the first researchers to highlight the significance of Canadians' attachment to the game of hockey was Tom Faulkner, who is currently a professor of church and society at the University of Winnipeg. About 30 years ago, Prof. Faulkner argued in a widely published essay that Canadians are drawn to hockey because it offers many of the aspects that make religion attractive: a community, sense of belonging and common purpose.

"I think that in a very engaging and superficial way, hockey does many of the things and offers many of the things that classical religion does," Prof. Faulkner said in a recent interview. "I think that people have a natural yearning for whatever religion does. ... It binds us together in our loneliness, in our separateness."

However, there's a danger in putting hockey in the same category as religious worship, he said. While the game has the power to bring people together and form bonds in a community, fans should remember that it's also a form of entertainment that helps people escape from the realities of daily life. Giving hockey the importance of religion may end up taking away from that.

"There are parallels, but we've got to be careful not to take them seriously as identities and try to respect hockey as a game, and religion as a quest for meaning," Prof. Faulkner said. "It's a game. It's fun. Enjoy. But don't expect it to deliver what you demand of religion."