HOCKEY FIGHT IN CANADA

2011

Typing ‘hockey’ into the search function on YouTube generates a long list of video clips that glorify the violence of NHL hockey games. Top comments from online viewers, such as: “if your gonna fight take your helmets off haha”, “OMG someone please kill them all!!!”, “boxin on ice :P shud be a new sport”, and “lol, #7 dude in green t shirt has such a vagina face ! the only one which was serious was #1, the dude in white knows how to fight... punches straight to the face” [sic] reveal a dominant part of the culture and mentality surrounding hockey in Canada. In recent years, research on repeat concussions and the long-term damage done to hockey players’ brains tells us that hockey violence is a self-perpetuating cycle.

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Each panel is a digital photograph taken of the artist’s computer screen while YouTube videos of hockey games played. The cursor in some of the images is to recall the spectator, and the active role the viewer plays in promoting this particular form of violence. Presented at Gallery 78 as part of an exhibition celebrating hockey culture, the work functions as a realist counterpoint to dominant narratives of national identity, drawing attention to the normalized presence of aggression within both sport and its digital afterlife.