The Church of Hockey
Every once in a while I stumble across an archival pic that I simply know I'll someday turn into a painting. Perhaps no other picture has ever caught my imagination like the one below... It's from 1944 and depicts a team called the Bombers, playing out of a building simply called "The Old Arena Rink" in the town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. I was immediately captivated. Having been something of a 'rink rat' myself as a child, my affinity with this image was automatic and deep. Me tending goal for Accurate Printing circa 1972 So what do I like about it, besides basically everything? It's the intimacy of the building, for starters, with the audience literally stacked atop itself and jammed to the rafters. It's the fact that the largest ads are...unapologetically...for cigarettes. And it's also the fact that this domed cozy barn would have been a warm and boisterous haven from the freezing cold Maritime winter just outside its wooden wall