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With the news that the NHL has now cancelled games through the first two weeks of January, the lockout continues to challenge all of us this fall/winter to fill the time that we would usually dedicate to watching hockey to doing, well, something else. Some of us have started following other hockey leagues or started watching a new sport altogether, while some of us have used that time to focus on school, work, volunteering, personal relationships, general self-improvement, or hobbies.
Last week, Marcy Cuttler, producer/director of CBC's Doc Zone, contacted a group of SBN Hockey site managers with a documentary idea: what exactly are Canadians doing without NHL hockey? Here is her description of what the project would be about:
While we are keeping our fingers crossed that the NHL season can be saved, we are, nevertheless, bracing for the possibility of a winter without hockey. Should that happen, we are exploring a documentary idea. Our focus would not be on the labour dispute, the economics or any of the negotiations at all.Instead we want to take a look at how Canadians are coping without the national game. It would speak to our psyche, our emotional connection to hockey, and it would be a wry, affectionate perspective.We are looking for counter-intuitive stories and characters--people who have taken up new hobbies, stores and bars meeting the challenge in different ways, couples who have "re-discovered" each other. These are just examples, and we're certainly open to all ideas. We're not trying to make light of the labour dispute. Rather through these stories we hope to show that even if hockey is gone, it is not forgotten.
Marcy is looking for unique stories about how hockey-loving Canadians have been coping with the loss of their favourite professional league, so if you have a story about interesting, strange, fun, quirky, or heartwarming ways yourself or others have found to fill the void left by the NHL, leave a comment below or email me and I will put you in touch with Marcy.
Hopefully we can come up with some great stories to help her out!