A multimedia project
A solo exhibition at Anchorage Museum in 2016
Stick and Puck is a body of mixed media works that examines the life and death of National Hockey League enforcer Derek Boogaard. Ranging from his youth in western Canada to the height of his career with the New York Rangers to his tragic overdose in a Minneapolis apartment, the work looks at sports’ gladiator culture and frames his story as a Greek tragedy.
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Derek Boogaard, one of the National Hockey League’s most feared enforcers, died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and oxycodone in a Minneapolis hotel room on May 13th, 2011. Derek was the son of a Canadian Mountie. He grew up moving from town to town in
Saskatchewan. He grew so large so fast that he was clumsy on the ice and wasn't thought to have much future in hockey. As an adult, he was 6’7” and 280 lbs. Always the new kid in school and bigger than most kids his age, other players would pick fights with Derek to prove themselves. Refusing to listen to parents, teachers or coaches who urged for a backup plan, his only goal, his one impossible dream, was playing the NHL. His unlikely path to professional hockey was to become an enforcer.
Derek learned to fight. Off the ice, he was shy and soft spoken, a gentle giant. On the ice, he learned to harness the berserker’s rage. The enforcer hardly ever scores. His job is to protect and avenge the smaller, more skilled players. The life of a hockey enforcer is one of broken hands, penalty minutes, missing teeth, black eyes, broken jaws and pain killers.
Secluded in a New York City apartment near the end of his life, Derek wrote in a journal. He put to paper his memories of growing up and playing hockey. He wrote of his dreams and fears. Some of his writing has been integrated into this work. A copy of the transcript is available. An autopsy revealed his brain to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Had he survived, he would have likely been stricken with early onset dementia. Like Icarus of old, he had flown too close to the sun. Therefore, this work is a mythical, visual retelling of the life of Derek Boogaard, 6/23/1982–5/13/2011 R.I.P.
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