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Canwest News Service
The schoolboy in Abu Dhabi had just watched a screening of The Hockey Sweater, the classic animated film about a Quebec village youngster's love of Canadiens legend Maurice Richard.
The boy was intrigued by the film's final moment, which features a youngster of about his own age. In the scene, Richard appears as an almost saintly vision among the church pews to congratulate this fan who is deep in prayer, asking God to send a hundred million moths to devour his detested Toronto Maple Leafs sweater.
And now this viewer, who'd never seen a hockey rink, had an innocent question for the film's presenters — Roch Carrier, author of the autobiographical story, and Sheldon Cohen, its animator.
"This gentleman," he asked about Richard. "Is he your Jesus?"
To many in 1940s Quebec, the ethereal Rocket Richard was that and a great deal more.
Thirty years since Carrier's short story came to animated life, The Hockey Sweater is being celebrated today through Christmas Eve at Old Montreal's Avenue Art Gallery as part of an exhibition titled Hockey: Our Love Affair.
Beginning with this Thursday's vernissage, the event also features the paintings of renowned artists Terry Tomalty and Janet Nash and the photographs of Tomalty's son, Mark.
The exhibition's centrepiece will be the display and sale of some three dozen of Cohen's original animation cels and drawings from The Hockey Sweater/Le Chandail, the international award-winning film and children's book. A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Montreal Canadiens Children's Foundation.
The tale has evolved from a quaint mortgage-paying yarn Carrier spun for CBC radio in the early 1970s into a vital piece of Canadian literature, one that bridges the country's linguistic and cultural divides and is excerpted on our $5 bill.
The 1980 National Film Board short, which preceded the children's book by four years, is famous the world over. Its profound touch on millions remains a revelation to Carrier and Cohen, their impressive bodies of work forever highlighted by it.
Cohen, a Montreal native, was a freelance animator at the NFB in the late 1970s when producer Marrin Canell heard Carrier reading the story on CBC. He rushed to the animation department and insisted this was a project the NFB must do.
Over coffee this week, Cohen remembered not being the first choice to animate it. But others were unable to do so for various reasons and finally he was asked to produce a few drawings to show Carrier his style of work.
At a meeting in the Montreal offices of the NFB, Cohen displayed his art to the author and held his breath.
"Roch said, 'That's it. That's my childhood right there,' " he said.
Carrier recalls himself being "a young writer looking for opportunities, whatever came. Even if Sheldon's drawings had been less interesting, I would have said yes and reserved the possibility of saying no later on, if this didn't work."
But instantly there was a chemistry between the two men. They soon drove to Carrier's boyhood home of Ste. Justine, 280 kilometres northeast of Montreal, where Cohen took copious notes in an exploration of the village's every corner.
The project was cemented in the most perfect Quebecois way: over a rich slice of sugar pie at a restaurant Carrier insisted they visit.
The story, translated by Sheila Fischman from its original French version titled Une abominable feuille d'erable sur la glace, had poured from Carrier's typewriter in just a couple of hours, the inspiration nearly overwhelming the author. "I do not claim any credit for it," he has said.
For Cohen, however, the film would consume two years of his life; it involved five assistants, 12-hour days, and many nights spent sleeping at the office to produce a 10-minute, 21-second film.
"I often say this just has a magic to it," Cohen said. "People feel it. It's as alive today as ever, and it has a life of its own."
Carrier says not a day goes by that something good doesn't happen to him because of it. If he never saw Richard play, he did finally meet his childhood hero at an early screening of the film, watching the ferocious Rocket's steely eyes well with tears.
May Cutler, the founder of Tundra Books, had the vision to bring moving picture to the printed page in 1984. Cohen took 10,000 images required for the film and reshaped them to 13 paintings, a year's effort that taught him an entirely new way to create.
Carrier and Cohen collaborated on more children's books for Tundra that covered Canada's other seasons: The Boxing Champion, The Longest Home Run, and The Basketball Player for spring, summer and fall.
And it's today that many roads intersect for the exhibition timed to celebrate the film's 30th anniversary and the Canadiens' centennial. It is in the gallery of Cutler's daughter-in-law, Marina, that the show is being staged. By remarkable coincidence, a young Marina spent summers in Roch Carrier's Ste. Justine, where her family had a farm.
Cutler has been working for a year to produce the exhibition, assisted by Colleen Gainey, a daughter of Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey.
"Everyone knows this story," Colleen Gainey said, passionately and emotionally speaking about a tale with which she grew up. "It's a part of Canada. It's a part of all of us."
