HOCKEY STORIES
(2001, colour 35mm film, 13 min.)
After a brief INTRODUCTION depicting a family listening to a 1940s Foster Hewitt hockey broadcast on the radio, the following tales unfold:
In 1933 EDDIE SHORE put ACE BAILEY into a coma with a brutal bodycheck from behind. Ace eventually awoke, but never played hockey again.
BILL BARILKO's last goal won the 1951 Stanley Cup for the Leafs. That summer he disappeared while on a fishing trip, and the Leafs were jinxed...
Canadiens superstar HOWIE MORENZ' dazzling career was cut short in 1937 by a chance collision on the ice.
Sean Thompson's artwork places these tales in the mystical realm; players floating in the sky become constellations and tragedy unfolds as the fates decree. Bill Barilko drifts effortlessly into the wilderness, and Howie Morenz appears at the centre of his own Gothic altar. Which is only fitting, for the history of hockey is a rich source of myth, and its heroes have always been the subjects of worship and adoration.
