Actor says it’s ‘pretty sweet’ to reprise role in Life After Hockey
Canadian playwright’s gem explores Prairie man’s love affair with hockey
His firefighting career is on ice and so is Sean Hoy.
After a decade in Calgary responding to emergencies, Hoy responded to Dancing Sky Theatre’s invitation to redo one of the company ’s earliest plays, Life After Hockey.
“To get the chance to do it again is pretty sweet,” Hoy said recently.
Life After Hockey opened a lot of acting doors for Hoy after its run as Dancing Sky’s third-ever play in 1988.
Hoy plays Rink Rat Brown in the solo show by Ken Brown. It’s the story of a man’s love of hockey and his specious claim to having scored the winning goal in the 1984 Canada Cup.
“It’s a real treatise on what it’s like to be Canadian, a Canadian on the Prairies, to share this weird passion we have for being outside when we shouldn’t be,” Hoy said.
The play’s effect on audiences is personal and direct, triggering true life stories which people are eager to share with the actor.
“Honestly, I think this is one of those overlooked Canadian gems that, to me, is as evocative of the Canadian Prairie experience as anything W.O. Mitchell wrote.”
Hoy certainly can identify with the nostalgia. He grew up in City Park and remembers putting on his skates in the kitchen and skating down the back alley to the rink.
And, as it happens, he’s a Habs fan, just like Rink Rat Brown. Not that it doesn’t cause some ill feelings. Hoy was preparing for a performance at the Globe Theatre in Regina when a Maple Leafs fan said: “You better not slag the Leafs tonight.”
“You’re in the wrong show, buddy,” Hoy replied with a laugh
Hoy spends half the play on rollerblades and recalls being physically spent at the end of the first run. This time, he’s got the fitness, but the perspective has changed, because he and director Angus Ferguson are 20 years older.
“The play resonates in a different way than it did when we were all 33 or 34 years old. There’s more mortality kind of creeping into it.”
Another difference is the season. The 1998 production was presented in July. Hoy remembers going outside to cool off and getting swarmed by mosquitos.
“It was brutal. It was so hot and I’m skating around like a crazy man. By the end of the show, I was soaked from head to toe.”
Looking back, Hoy feels lucky to have had two dream jobs, as an actor and a firefighter.
“I wanted to do something where I was making a difference in people’s lives, which you kind of do in the arts, but in a different way.
“In firefighting, most days you help somebody who is in a really bad way and it’s an incredibly fulfilling thing to do.”
Hoy’s initial plan was to take six weeks off to do the play, but his wife landed a job running the library at Ryerson University, so he’ll be moving to the home of the Maple Leafs after Life After Hockey.
His plan is to “see if I can con people into hiring me out there,” he said with a laugh.