Statement
“I had a fight with Ed Westfall of the Boston Bruins, he put his skate up and I punched through it. My thumb was hanging by some skin. – Ferguson “When blood pooled on that surface, the contrast was stark – red on white ice – our nation’s colours” – Lawrence Scanlan
What is it in our modern lives that the game of hockey satisfies? What causes such fanatic devotion among hockey followers that destruction and riots break out?
I am interested in the culture of hockey as a means of understanding its role within our society’s appetite for aggression. I focus on the NHL hockey fight and its aftermath. The hockey player has become a popular metaphor for war hero and cultural icon, and; it is for the incredible duty of the player, followed by his super human pain, suffering and injury – culminating in extraordinary triumph; that the hockey fan “strives to become greater through him.” Sports writer, Kevin Allen, stated, “…The hockey code of honour shares ideals with the Roman Empire …unwavering in their allegiance to the cause and unbelievably loyal…Players on the bench pound their sticks on the boards to salute their gladiator.”
My subjects are actual NHL hockey players lifted off a hockey “fight site” on the internet and manipulated with paint and gestural mark-making. They portray their “badges of honour” with blood and stitches, welts, black and blue bruised, yellowed wounds that pay them homage to the realities of playing in pain. It is my belief that hockey has advanced in its rationale and is no longer just a means of sport and entertainment. It has become the unorthodox substitute or filler to that which has become obsolete in the lives of many modern men – the protection of territory, the rites of passage, the defence of family and home, combat and warfare strategy, camaraderie, heroism and strength.
I have connected these two opposing traditions: fine art and mainstream hockey culture, in order to portray that hockey’s colour, beauty and grace of movement is often paralleled with fractured noses, loose teeth, split heads, and concussions. It is not my intention to offer a critique or glorify fighting in the game. I strive to discover in this series, what is really going on within the game of hockey and how its function serves society. The game has become a militaristic, test of courage and the NHL “walks that delicate walk, making the right noises about curbing fighting to satisfy those appalled by it – but leaving enough rough stuff to satisfy the other side… who live for those moments when the gloves are dropped.”
As Ken Dryden states, “The NHL theory of violence is nothing more than original violence tolerated and accepted, in time turned into custom, into tactic, and finally into theory.”