Canada earns silver at 2023 International Para Hockey Cup

A illustration of unity will probably be entrance and centre throughout the 2023 World
Para Hockey Championship due to a collaboration between two native
Indigenous artists.

Brandy Jones is an Inuit artist who moved to Regina from British Columbia
when she was 12 years outdated. Her work includes blended mediums of native arts,
representing unity amongst all Indigenous peoples. Rodger W. Ross is of
Métis/Cree descent and a member of the George Gordon First Nation in
Saskatchewan. He is a multi-disciplined artist and a global
award-winning documentary movie producer, whose profession spans 4 many years.

Read on to study extra about Player of the Game paintings. Answers have been
barely edited for readability and size.

Hockey Canada (HC): How did this collaboration come collectively for the
2023 World Para Hockey Championship?

Rodger Ross (RR): I’ve labored with the Moose Jaw Warriors
previously. I did a cultural presentation to them first, after which I created
an orange shirt design for them. When the scenario got here up with the World
Para Hockey Championship, one of many girls that I labored with reached out
and gave my info. […] Seeing how Brandy’s [art form] works so effectively
for these kinds, it simply appeared like an ideal collaboration. So, once I was
requested [who I would recommend], she was the primary identify [I suggested].

Brandy Jones (BJ): Rodger has all the time been a really huge
assist of my work. Not simply on giving me recommendation, however generally when it
involves collaboration with the work as effectively, there’s issues that he sees in
my work as I’m going alongside. He has an excellent eye for it. For instance, in
the hockey helmet, at first it was linked to the feather that was
connected there. And he was like, “You ought to put a white line to separate
that.” That’s one thing that I hadn’t even seen but. I’m all the time prepared to
work with Rodger as a result of he all the time has the good jobs… I’m all the time very
joyful to oblige.

Captain Marc-André Plante and squadron plane upkeep engineering officer Nadia Kang of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds current Dominic Cozzolino with the participant of the sport award on May 29, 2023.

HC: What is the inspiration behind the design of the Player of the Game
paintings?

RR: When we first bought approached, I wished to know extra
in regards to the sport as a result of I have not watched loads of [para hockey]. But I’ve
watched some para hockey, and I’m so impressed by it, as a result of I’m a former
hockey participant as effectively. […] When I’m watching these gamers and the way they
transfer, the facility that they’ve and that fixed move of vitality, that to me
needed to be the centerpiece. […] The very first thing I wished was that hockey
participant within the center, and I wished that motion as a result of Brandy’s artwork type
works with that motion so effectively. And then I believed one of the best ways to have
the nation’s representatives is thru their flags. […] Having the Métis
flag, the Saskatchewan flag, the Treaty 4 flag, clearly the Canada flag is
represented within the brand itself—to me, these appeared just like the pure
components.

BJ: I feel it is excellent the best way that it got here out. It’s the
design for me that simply feels prefer it represents Canada.

HC: Brandy, you additionally created one other paintings for occasion stakeholders.
What was the inspiration behind that piece?

BJ: It’s a Thunderbird. Sometimes it is arduous for folks to
decipher that kind of labor. Some folks see it instantly, after which different
instances persons are wanting in there pondering, “What is that?” That is
one thing that Rodger and I had mentioned. We had seemed on the Four
Directions and what represented every of these instructions. For me, I actually
tried arduous to combine these animals collectively. But I used to be discovering that very arduous
to do on the time. I attempted to simply have a look at what I believed was probably the most
highly effective out of all 4 of these. I did add a bear in there as effectively, inside
the physique. But for some cause, it was the Thunderbird that basically caught out
to me, as a result of there are bringers of the thunder. It’s type of so simple as
that it, it was the animal that I believed was probably the most highly effective and stood
out probably the most to characterize what we have been doing on the time.

HC: This is the primary time the World Para Hockey Championship has been
hosted in Canada. How does it really feel understanding your contribution will probably be
related to the legacy of the occasion?

BJ: That’s so arduous to reply as a result of it simply feels actually
unbelievable. There’s no different option to describe it aside from that; it is
lovely having the ability to characterize like my nation and in addition the province that
I dwell in. It was undoubtedly a labour of affection, and I couldn’t be happier.

RR: For me, it is all the time about relationships, and so far as
Indigenous inclusion, any time that that I get invited to permit our voices
to be heard, to permit our folks to be represented, it is all the time going to be
a fantastic honour. But I additionally have a look at it as an obligation to reconciliation.
[…] It makes me really feel very, very proud to have the ability to take part at this
stage, to be in a global occasion, and to be part of that. For Brandy
and I to be invited at hand out that award between the United States and
Canada, with the world watching, I feel is a reasonably highly effective assertion of,
“We haven’t gone anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere,” We’re right here, and we
have lovely cultures amongst us. It’s time that our voices be heard.