Art Meets Hockey: Briony Douglas Celebrates the Inaugural Six

Canadian artist Briony Douglas captures the spirit of women’s hockey with The Inaugural Six, a stunning sculpture crafted from players’ hockey sticks from the PWHL’s first season. This monumental piece celebrates resilience, legacy, and the passion of the game, blending art and sport in a tribute like no other. We chatted with Briony to learn more. —Noa Nichol

What inspired you to create The Inaugural Six, and how did you approach blending the worlds of art and women’s hockey into this piece?

Women in sports has always been incredibly important to me. This feels like a special moment in history as women’s hockey is finally getting the flowers that they deserve, so being a part of it by building a monument with ‘The Inaugural Six’ meant the world to me. This piece is crafted out of 127 upcycled hockey sticks, each one with the name of a different PWHL player written on the side, paying tribute to each and every one of them.

You’ve said that “each stick tells a story.” Can you share how the process of working with these game-used sticks influenced your design and the emotions you wanted to convey?

Being made out of each players stick not only do you see their names written on the side but a lot of players wrap the tape differently, some were way more beat up than others, it was like being let into personal secret on how these Women are just crushing it out on the ice and I am so honoured by it.

Women’s hockey has a rich legacy of resilience and strength. How did this influence the themes and overall message of your artwork?

Often in my artwork I use many small items to create one large one, which speaks to my belief in the importance of community and us all coming together as one. You have seen that with the Women in this league, how hard they have worked to be here today and every piece of a stick laid on this sculpture embodies that. 

The piece stands at an impressive four feet tall and six feet wide. Can you walk us through the process of crafting such a large-scale and intricate work?

In terms of actual process, first we did the math based on the amount of recycled sticks we had and figured out how big we could go from there! We then created the structure and got to work cutting all the sticks up to fit the skeleton, we then welded the eye mask and added it on. Often in my work I am discovering the process of working with a new medium and discovering how to manipulate fiberglass was no easy feat but it makes the final product so much more rewarding.

What do you hope audiences take away from The Inaugural Six, and how do you see collaborations like this shaping the future of art in sports?

Art is the beginning spark to important conversations, my hope is when people see this it will ignite them to support the sport if they are not already doing so! When Royale reached out to commission this piece I was beyond excited, it is clear they genuinely love and support this league. Support from brands like Royale are so important because without them this art piece wouldn’t have happened and it is directly impacting those who are currently on the ice and the next generation to skate on.