Love and Hockey

Michael Melski's play likens sports and personal relationships

As winter looms, thousands of Canadian parents are preparing themselves for the annual ritual of early mornings spent scraping off the car, warming frozen fingers with take-out coffee and chilling in the damp discomfort of a local arena - all so that they can taste the pleasures of their son or daughter's victories on the hockey rink. East coast playwright Michael Melski has crafted this quintessentially Canadian experience into a play called Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad, which is "kind of a sweet love story", says director Rosemary Dunsmore.
"Irene Poole, who is playing Hockey Mom, had done this play maybe five years ago, and it was something she had great affection for," Dunsmore explains. The show has a particularly eastern feel, she adds: "Irene's from Labrador and David Terry [Hockey Dad] is from Newfoundland." Playwright Michael Melski (named by Maclean's Magazine as one of the 100 Canadians To Watch) is from Sydney, which, for its size, has possibly bred more good playwrights than any other city in Canada.
"It may have something to do with the isolation and the dependence on themselves for entertainment. The play is in a culture where to go to the hockey game is entertainment," Dunsmore muses. Whatever the case, it's an idiom that Dunsmore is familiar with, having worked with Poole on many previous occasions, including Factory Theatre's production of The Glace Bay Miner's Museum, the play upon which the film Margaret's Museum is based. (For that show, Dunsmore spent time in Cape Breton researching local culture and history.)
In Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad, Poole and Terry "are both single parents. She's recently moved to Sydney, and their kids are both on the hockey team," says Dunsmore. "He's totally into hockey. He's an enthusiastic, loving hockey parent and he really knows the game. She's put her son in hockey so he can make some friends, and she doesn't know the game. Also, she's just come out of an abusive relationship, so she's extremely wary about anything that remotely smacks of violence."
Of course, opposites attract, and romance blooms in the hockey stands. "During the course of this play, all four people grow," Dunsmore says. (Although this is a two-hander and the audience doesn't actually get to meet the two hockey-playing sons, their characters have a presence in the script.)
"The plays also explores 'fan mentality', how you invest your happiness in the team winning," Dunsmore continues. "It's a metaphor for what we often do in our personal relationships: we invest our happiness in the other person, and when they don't succeed - when they don't make us happy - we want to kill them."
The playwright also touches on the issue of violence in sports, but "I think what he's interested in is the balance between offensive and defensive play," Dunsmore says, "and the balance is what's important. In hockey terms, unless that balance is playing out, you don't have a very good game."
Factory Theatre presents Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad from October 31 to December 7. For tickets and information, call 416-504-9971 or visit www.factorytheatre.ca.

Publication Date: 2003-10-26
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3295