Understanding the Canadian Experience Through Hockey Literature
In Richard Harrison's Hero of the Play, hockey is a means by which he conveys a complex vision of Canada. From his nostalgic remembrance of the 1972 team to his celebration of Don Cherry, Harrison captures those hockey moments which make fans proud to be Canadian. But, through hockey, Harrison also captures some of Canada's more difficult and painful memories.
Read "The Silence of 17000-Montreal Forum, December 11, 1989," where Harrison describes the Forum as fans and players try to make sense of the murder of fourteen young women in Montreal that day:
17000 who came for noise drawn to silence in their
memory this building the shape of the inside of the
mouth it waits for air the women of L'Ecole
Polytechnique fill the Forum we swear we will never
forget but words return and we take sides dressed in
opposing cities we shame and glorify ourselves each
season the enemy goalie wears a white ribbon under
his helmet he shakes his head when the siren sounds
the game begins the police arrive too late as many
dead as on the ice before us
Questions for discussion or personal reflection