The Hockey Sweater

"The hockey scene on the five-dollar bill, showing a game in motion outdoors on a frozen pond, gives you a pretty good sense of the kind of picture that Roch Carrier painted of post-war Quebec in The Hockey Sweater . It’s told very simply as well, which is why it’s a book that could be read by children. But adults can get just as much out of it. It’s like The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry – a very simple tale but it has layers and layers. The book is about a young boy who lives in a small Quebec town, where they never hear or speak English, whose mother orders him a hockey sweater from a catalogue – Eaton’s catalogue was famous in Canada for most of the 20th century. The mother inadvertently orders the wrong team jersey. In fact, she orders the jersey of the English-speaking team. This young boy has to go out on to the ice in this small Quebec town, where everyone is a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, and the story is about the life lessons he learns from that experience. The reason the book is revered is that it teaches about not only the game but also its place in Canada, particularly in 1930s Quebec. The passion for the Montreal Canadiens became part of the Nationalist movement that came out of Quebec. A lot of people associate the Nationalist movement with the hockey team. The Canadiens’ success is seen as being a first step towards the Quebec nationalist dream. The book talks about the tensions in our country between English and French, and how putting on a particular hockey sweater could define you and where you were going with your life."