A fact from Oxford Canadians appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 January 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ice Hockey, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of ice hockey on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ice HockeyWikipedia:WikiProject Ice HockeyTemplate:WikiProject Ice HockeyIce Hockey articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
In what way did this team represent Canada? They were not exclusively Canadian, and had no apparent mandate from any Canadian sporting authority. Using a demonym does not raise a team to representative status. They represented English tournaments, as the winners of such, in European competitions. Canada cannot be represented in a European Championships. Kevin McE (talk) 21:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is mostly due to the fact that sport was so very different back then to now. Being primarily an amateur enterprise, a team which these days would most certainly not be considered to "represent Canada" did at the time. Firstly, going purely by policy, Wikipedia is about what is verifiable. There are two sources which state that the Oxford Canadians were the first team representing Canada to wear the maple leaf (those at the end of the relevant sentence in the article). Further to that they competed in the 1912 LIHG as a "non-European" team, so clearly they were not representing England. From what I have read from other sources (which aren't considered RS, so I appreciate that they can't be used in the article and are only borderline in this argument) the team brought "Canadian rules" hockey to Europe. I would agree that there was certainly no official representation. However, the team seems to have represented Canada in a de facto fashion within Europe during the time it was active, and there are two sources, one of them a Canadian sources at that, which state that the team was the first hockey club representing Canada to wear a red maple leaf. Harriastalk 22:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sources that say something that cannot literally be defended are not reliable, at least in that regard. If an interpretation on "representing Canada" is intended in this article that is distinct and different from the meaning of the phrase as usually understood, then that should be explicit: not to do so is to allow an encyclopaedia to mislead rather than to inform. Kevin McE (talk) 23:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
