Schedule announced for 2023 Para Hockey Cup

A illustration of unity might be entrance and centre in the course of 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 previous. 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 be taught 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 state of affairs 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 properly
for these varieties, it simply appeared like an ideal collaboration. So, after I was
requested [who I would recommend], she was the primary title [I suggested].

Brandy Jones (BJ): Rodger has all the time been a really huge
help of my work. Not simply on giving me recommendation, however typically when it
involves collaboration with the work as properly, 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 related 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 keen to
work with Rodger as a result of he all the time has the good jobs… I’m all the time very
comfortable 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 acquired approached, I needed to know extra
concerning the recreation as a result of I have never watched plenty 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 properly. […] When I’m watching these gamers and the way they
transfer, the facility that they’ve and that fixed stream of power, that to me
needed to be the centerpiece. […] The very first thing I needed was that hockey
participant within the center, and I needed that motion as a result of Brandy’s artwork kind
works with that motion so properly. And then I believed one of the simplest 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 emblem itself—to me, these appeared just like the pure
components.

BJ: I feel it is good the way in which 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 laborious for individuals to
decipher that sort of labor. Some individuals see it straight away, after which different
occasions individuals are wanting in there considering, “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 laborious to combine these animals collectively. But I used to be discovering that very laborious
to do on the time. I attempted to simply take a look at what I believed was essentially the most
highly effective out of all 4 of these. I did add a bear in there as properly, inside
the physique. But for some purpose, it was the Thunderbird that basically caught out
to me, as a result of there are bringers of the thunder. It’s sort of so simple as
that it, it was the animal that I believed was essentially the most highly effective and stood
out essentially the most to symbolize what we had 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 might be
related to the legacy of the occasion?

BJ: That’s so laborious to reply as a result of it simply feels actually
unbelievable. There’s no different option to describe it aside from that; it is
stunning having the ability to symbolize like my nation and in addition the province that
I stay in. It was positively 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 individuals to be represented, it is all the time going to be
a fantastic honour. But I additionally take 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
degree, to be in a global occasion, and to be part of that. For Brandy
and I to be invited handy 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 stunning cultures amongst us. It’s time that our voices be heard.