Original cast of GLORY. Set and Lighting Designer: Narda McCarroll. Costume Designer: Cindy Wiebe. Photo: Barbara Zimonick.
Sophia Tavasieff
Ice hockey: the quintessential Canadian sport. Dominated by men in the NHL in the 1930s, the teamwork, camaraderie, and sheer brutality of the sport brings people together, even in the most desperate of times. But what happens if women give it a try?
Written by Tracey Power, GLORY tells the story of four women who did just that. Struggling to keep together a baseball team and still grumbling about their loss in the championships, four magnificent women find solace in the dreariness of the Great Depression to create one of the most fearsome women’s hockey teams of their time. They fight their way through the opinions of the disbelieving public, sexist radio announcers, media, and a coach to bring camaraderie, teamwork, and joy to people in desperate times, and show that a woman’s place is on home ice.
Helen (Kate Dion-Richard) delivered a delightfully feminine and iron-willed performance as the picture of a 1930s woman: flirty as a teen, unyielding as a mother, and an absolute powerhouse on the ice. Hilda (Katie Ryerson) was exactly as hardworking, hockey-obsessed, and earnest as you would expect a team captain to be, bringing tired teammates together in the locker room and being a talented player to boot, scoring goals in every game as she worked towards her dream job: the NHL. Her sister Nellie (Morgan Yamada) gave the show the purehearted support and strength of the best goalies. Marm’s (Advah Soudack) saucy sense of humor both diminished tenuous situations as the team was coming together, but later in the show exhibited a fortitude that showed she wouldn’t stand for discrimination, of her gender or ethnicity. She used her wit to both charm and convince the coach, Herb (Andrew Wheeler), into agreeing to coach women’s hockey. Herb doggedly agreed, and delivered the grumpy get-down-to business attitude of everyone’s favorite coach.
