Help with hockey documentary needed

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Dear Editor:

One of the most endearing sporting activities in our short history as Canadians is ice hockey. It has established itself over many generations as a cultural icon from coastal backyard rink to coastal arena. Hockey has given us pride, taken us in during those cold winter nights and resurrected a passion that on occasion hibernates when our collective teams weren't doing so well.

I've been in video production for the better part of 15 years now. I've worked with children and adults, the young and the old. I've interviewed Elders, politicians, movies stars, rock stars, and at one point had been inside of the Maple Leafs' dressing room. Percolating in my head over the last 10 years or so is this whole concept of producing a documentary on ice hockey in the Moose Factory Moosonee area.

See, I was born and raised on the tiny island of Moose Factory and have always considered it my home town. I have many great memories of being out on my father's backyard rink re-enacting the dramatic final minutes of a Canada Cup or Stanley Cup final played out. I also carry the memory of being at my very first All Ontario Native men's hockey tournament at the hallowed McIntyre arena on the March 25th weekend back in 1976.

There I was, 11 years old; seeing an arena with artificial ice was as foreign to me as the streets lights and paved roads just outside. March 2006 will mark the 30th anniversary of the first time a Moose Factory men's hockey team had won the All Ontario. This event will be one part of my three-part documentary in which I will cover the history of hockey in this area and in the contemporary sense as to what is going on today and what has changed in the minor hockey system since those early days.

As a producer, I am always looking for more photos, memorabilia, newspaper clippings and best of all film or video footage of that March '76 weekend in Timmins or of the Moose

Factory/Moosonee area during the 70s and 80s. If there exists any other vintage Native hockey tournament footage in northern Ontario, I would love to see it. The title of my documentary is called 'In The Sticks' and it is a deep passion of mine.

Please direct all enquiries to: victorlinklater@hotmail.com or call 705 658 4987.

-Victor Linklater