The Story Behind The Hockey Sweater

It is arguable that the greatest book ever written by a Canadian is a children's book. Roch Carrier's The Hockey Sweater needs no introduction in Canada. But Carrier recently revealed some fascinating insight into the story behind the story.

"I got this invitation from the CBC to write something about the question that everybody was asking in Canada - What does Quebec want?" He started working on the text but it was not coming together.

"And I phoned back on Friday to tell CBC that I could not do it. They said they had a time slot booked for Monday so 'Write whatever you want and it will be OK.' "Suddenly I got an idea ... to write about some experience when I was kid about hockey. No philosophy, not thinking about hockey as a religion, just write the thing as it was. "It was written very quickly. It was translated into English by Sheila Fischman, who did an incredible job.

"By Sunday afternoon, we were sitting in the CBC studio in Montreal recording. Sheila was in front of me and she was my tutor in English. There were some words that were hard for me to pronounce in English like M-O-T-H-S."

Here's the full article.

For those not familiar with The Hockey Sweater, be sure to watch this: