Who would you cheer for if the Torngat Nanuks face off against the Mount Revelstoke Bighorns?
Can the Tuktut Nogait Claws scratch past the Gros Morne Giants? Maybe a hike in Gros Morne National Park will influence your answer.
Would you like to see the Thousand Islands Emeralds light up the scoreboard against the Kouchibouguac Comets?
Out of 49 teams of the fictitious Parks Canada Hockey League (PCHL), which one will go on to win the James Harkin Cup?
You can help decide by voting through social media in the weeks to come.
The PCHL is the creation of Memorial University geography student and artist Mark Connolly.
Connolly has combined a long-held pastime of doodling sports logos, and a love of sports and pop culture, along with his knowledge of Canada’s national parks and reserves to create a project that attempts to raise awareness of Canada’s national treasures while hooking into the love of Canada’s game.
The 49 teams of the PCHL represent Canada’s 48 national parks and a national park reserve — each team name and hockey-style logo inspired by specific characteristics of the protected areas.
“I draw sports logos and I just learned a lot about our national parks, and they are amazing places and really inspiring, and every place is so unique,” Connolly said. “I thought, what if they were a hometown to a hockey team, what would be the name and what would their logo look like? It was completely random, an idea that came out of boredom, really.”
But boredom can also bring about great things. It was American author and philosopher Robert M. Pirsig who said, “Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.”
And so wolves and birds, waterways and mountains, spectacular land features and hiking trails that lie inside the boundaries of the parks pushed the dullness of Connolly’s downtime into a rush of colour and design. The PCHL was born.
Team names, conferences and divisions were formed, and a trophy designed to be raised at the end, in cyberspace.
The cup for the PCHL is named after James Bernard Harkin (1875-1955), the Lord Stanley of Canada’s national park system. Over a period of 25 years Harkin organized a nationwide system of parks. It was on his advice and persistence that the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada was created in 1919.
Connolly has been working on the project for the past year, having initially hoped to pitch it as a project for Canada’s 150th anniversary last year, but it wasn’t ready in time.
Still, Parks Canada officials have shown keen interest and have agreed to share the PCHL on the department’s social media sites.
Images of the PCHL’s various teams will be gradually released in the coming weeks.
“I will be posting the project on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the help of Parks Canada’s platform, as they will also share the images throughout the time period of the NHL playoffs,” Connolly said. “Once all the images are published, I’ll do Facebook polls and people can vote for their favourite team — a.k.a. their favourite park — and once that competition is over the winning team will move on. At the end of it, Canada’s favourite park will be declared champion and win the James Harkin Cup.”
Connolly’s Facebook page is Mark Connolly Design, and people can follow along on Twitter at hashtag #PCHL.
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