I think the rumored hockey series by Ken Burns is just a joke. MikeD
says that the article he saw by Ray Ratto seemed real enough, but I
feel pretty confident in saying that it must have been some type of
satire. I don't think people should get their hopes up.
I have seen enough interviews with Burns over the last two weeks that
if he were doing or did a hockey series, it surely would have been
mentioned. It doesn't make sense, anyway. First of all, his field is
American history, and he only did "Baseball" because of the connection
he feels it has to that area. Also, it was mentioned that he had just
finished "Baseball", which took ~4 years, and he is already starting on
his next project, 5 profiles of important US figures, the first of
which will be Jefferson. Burns has often said that the driving theme
behind his work is in attempting to answer the question, "Who are
we?", as a nation and a people. Hockey just wouldn't fit into that.
However, although I haven't seen it, I would suggest that anyone
interested in a hockey documentary try to view the "Home Game" series
which was done by Ken Dryden for Canadian tv a few years ago.
Everything I have heard about it was positive and it sounds as if it
was even better than "Baseball", since I thought that one of the
areas Burns fell short in was in conveying the impact of the sport in
places other than cities with major league teams. "Home Game" went to
the backyards and ponds of Canada to show just how deeply ingrained
hockey is in the society and history of that country.
"Baseball" was very enjoyable and accomplished some of its goals, most
notably in describing the impact of the Negro Leagues. I would be
interested to see what Burns would do with hockey, but I just don't
believe it will happen.
I'll just add that any discussion of "Baseball" should come off line,
I don't want to take HOCKEY-L off topic.
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Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93
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