Cree artist awarding memorable art during world juniors

Budding hockey stars from across the world will have a chance to take home some unique hardware when the world junior hockey championship begins on Boxing Day.

Rather than a plaque, medal or watch, winners of the player-of-the-game award will be handed a hand-painted stick made by Alberta-based Cree artist Jason Carter.

Rather than a plaque, medal or watch, winners of the player-of-the-game award will be handed a hand-painted stick made by Alberta-based Cree artist Jason Carter. He joined the Brent Loucks Show on Thursday to discuss the awards.

“It has been a bit of a whirlwind,” Carter said of his sudden popularity after the sticks were revealed this week. “It’s super-exciting for me as a visual artist to share my work and have this kind of reaction.”

Carter, from the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, painted 155 of the sticks to be handed out to one member of each of the winning and losing teams at the end of all 31 games during the tournament, along with dignitaries.

Carter is known in Alberta for his sculpting and paintings on larger pieces of canvas which are usually more than four feet tall.

Undertaking the intricate paintings on a hockey blade presented a unique challenge.

“I’m normally painting on these large-scale four-foot-by-eight-foot paintings,” Carter said. “When I realized just how small a hockey stick blade is, I was a bit worried about it realizing I had 155 of them to paint.”

The 11-day tournament, which is to take place in Edmonton and Red Deer, is to start Sunday. Team Canada’s first game is set for Boxing Day against the Czech Republic.

Canada’s games can be heard live on 980 CJME and 650 CKOM.