Playwright’s Note: Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad

This is a play for my friends then. We were a dirty bunch, deserving of the litter thrown at us by the rink rat girls we teased. No Guy Lafleur’s goldilocks or Sittler’s Wheatabix for us. We were ten-and-under pretend-flyers spat from exhaust pipes, splayed arse over tit across ice in Coachie’s fierce diagrams. Bobbie Clarke, our idol, his gap-toothed diabetic brilliance made our lives sweeter. We picked fights for the fans, the moms and dads, swore a blue-line streak to dead last, and the shit really hit the fan when we got home.
This is also a play for my Uncle Ches. He was a kid from the Pier who made it all the way to the Montreal Junior Canadiens, once faced Jacques Plante on a breakaway and missed, later crashed into a goal post in full flight, ruptured a kidney, then took eight years to die on dialysis. But he almost made it.
This is a play for my friends now. Some of them married some of the girls who threw garbage at us. Some of them are raising their own little Bobby (and Bobbie) Clarkes now. For whole families of of rink rats, new generations of broken hearts, playing the great game…
Play on.
– Michael Melski