Toronto Symphony scores ‘The Hockey Sweater’; book’s author humble about success

TORONTO – With its charming look at a Quebec boy’s fervour for the Montreal Canadiens and scorn for the Toronto Maple Leafs, “The Hockey Sweater” children’s book is often seen as a parable about French and English relations in Canada.

Surprisingly, author Roch Carrier says he didn’t intend for that to be the case.

“I would like to be seen as a very serious writer with a big head and big ideas, but what I did was just a little story about a personal experience,” the humble Carrier, 74, said with a laugh in a recent interview to discuss the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming interpretation of his book.

“A lot of people found all kinds of messages that my bright mind inserted in the story. I was not that bright. I just told a little story about hockey. Yes, I understood that perhaps there is more than that, but it came from the reader, not from the writer.”

First published in 1979 in French, Carrier’s “little story” has become a classic of Canadian literature, serving as a teaching tool in schools and spawning a National Film Board of Canada animated short. An excerpt from the tale, which is based on his real-life experience in 1946 Sainte-Justine, Que., is even featured on the current Canadian $5 bill.

Now, for the first time, “The Hockey Sweater” is being interpreted by a symphony orchestra in a stage production composed by Dora Award winner Abigail Richardson.

Carrier will narrate the premiere on May 12 at Roy Thomson Hall while famed former Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden hosts and Alain Trudel conducts. It’s part of an all-Canadian concert program that also includes John Estacio’s “Borealis” and Dolores Claman’s “Hockey Night in Canada.”

“She did a wonderful adaptation,” said Carrier, an officer of the Order of Canada and former National Librarian who’s won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

“It’s not (just) sport or bombastic music – it’s subtle, it’s a lot of variety, it’s entertaining. There is a lot of humour, there is nostalgia, there is a bit of folklore, allusions.”

Indeed, the symphony fully embraces the story’s drollery.

At a recent student preview, some orchestra members donned hockey jerseys and squared off onstage with sticks. To emulate the sound of the equipment on ice, they scraped construction tiles against each other, and some yelled out hockey terms as they played.

Some teachers in the audience also donned jerseys and students shouting “Rocket! Rocket! Rocket!” – a nod to legendary Canadiens’ player Maurice (The Rocket) Richard, who’s a focal point of the story – as they lined up outside the venue to see the performance.

“(The story) shows that if you’re different, it doesn’t really matter,” said Josie Horvath, 9, who studied the story in her Grade 4 class at Williamson Road Junior Public School.

“We all play the same sport so at the end it doesn’t really matter what you wear,” added classmate Chessy Stanschus, 9.

Carrier was moved when he heard the message the students took away from the show: “Just for that reason, I’m so happy I wrote that little story. That’s amazing.”

Carrier also wore a jersey onstage as he read from the story about a boy whose cherished Montreal Canadiens sweater (bearing Richard’s No. 9) is too tattered to wear to play ice hockey with friends in his small town. When his mother writes to the Eaton’s department store to order a new one, they mail a Leafs jersey instead and his mom forces him to wear it.

“It’s the story of Canada pre-1950, really … and of where it was primarily a Canada of English and French … and in terms of hockey it was a Canada of an NHL that had only six teams, and only two of those teams were Canadian,” said Dryden, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame who’s also a politician, lawyer, businessman and author.

“Both of those teams were just gigantic in their scale and scope, and any star player was a bigger star than could ever be the case in real life. Rocket Richard was just this figure that was unimaginable except as a giant.”

To get a feel for the story first-hand, Richardson toured Sainte-Justine with Carrier last summer, visiting his childhood home and the church where – as “The Hockey Sweater” describes – he prayed for “millions of moths to come and eat that Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey.”

Richardson said her goal was to portray the emotional highs and lows that she felt when she first heard the story as a child in her Grade 3 classroom just outside of Calgary.

“The elation of jumping on the ice and being so exciting, and then the devastation when it’s a Maple Leafs sweater,” said the symphony’s former affiliate composer, whose opera “Sanctuary Song” won a Dora Award.

“I think some kids, they know this story just as if a parent has read it to them or they have read it themselves, and they might not get all of the drama that is actually in there. … So I feel like I am their interpreter in this way.”

“The Hockey Sweater” is a co-commission of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. It will play in Calgary on Sept. 30 and at the NAC during its 2013/14 season.