By Dallas Barnes

The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are promising to be a year of firsts. For the athletes it could be their first Olympic Games, their first medal, or even their first time on an airplane. But for some, it may be their first time competing as an out Olympian.

Another first, The Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre which is at the core of all the action, will be hosting Pride House, a venue available to all gay and lesbian athletes as well as their supporters. Sitting central in this Pride House will be another first: Slapshotolus, a sculpture by Edmund Haakonson described as “a personification of the philosophical ideal of living one’s life true and honest unto one’s self, with a noble character and pure spirit.”

Edmund Haakonson is a revered sculptor with a concentration in human form as his subjects. Slapshotolus, a play on Discobulous a famous ancient Greek Sculpture meaning “the Discus Thrower”, is a unique piece in that it gives an ancient, stoic quality to an all too familiar form; the hockey player. As Haakonson puts it, “The image of ancient nude sculpture makes perfect sense to us, the image of a hockey player makes perfect sense, the hybrid of the two has a decidedly amusing result. There is something of the absurd in a hockey player wearing only skates, gloves and helmet, especially for anyone who has actually played hockey.”

This absurdity was on purpose though. “Slapshotolus is a connecting of the ancient sacred games and the modern Winter Games. The artist has taken the Classical Greek image that is an expression of high ideals, and given it a twenty-first century make over, a modern face. The body is that of an individual, not the formal, stylized convention of ancient Greek art. This recognizes the focus on individual achievement in our culture as opposed to the pre-eminence of the collective in the ancient. I have kept the body nude to acknowledge a millennia old tradition in art of what a nude symbolizes. The nude human form in art is used as a symbol of purity, innocence, truth. Nude = naked truth, if you will. The representative sport was chosen because hockey is the winter sport in Canada.”

This project has been a long time in the making. “I first had the idea for the sculpture about six years ago. I was not able, at that time, to pursue realizing the piece because of the expense of working in bronze. Because there is a direct connection in the sculpture between the ancient sacred games and the modern Winter Olympics, it seemed to me that now was the time that this work needed to happen. A year and a half ago I applied for and received a project grant from the Canada Council for the Arts that allowed me to produce the sculpture.”

This is a welcome acquisition for the first ever Pride House in Whistler. “We are so honoured to be able to have such a beautiful and moving piece of art to be one of our centre pieces at the 2010 Pride House,” says Dean Nelson, CEO of GayWhistler. “The inspiration and story behind Slapshotolus is perfectly aligned with the values and objectives of the Pride House.”

The Mission of the Pride House is simple: “to provide an open and welcoming venue for the LGBT community and their allies to celebrate together diversity and inclusiveness through sport.” They recognize that many of the athletes coming to Vancouver represent countries that do not accept homosexuality. In fact, many of these countries may even imprison or execute the athlete if they knew. What better way to show how accepting Canada is by providing a safe place for all LGBT members and their supporters. Moreover, how amazing it is to have a sculpture such as Slapshotolus as the central piece?

The Olympics have come a long way. When you tune in to watch your favourite athletes in the weeks to come, take notice of how Canada has stepped up to accept all individuals regardless of cultural restrictions. It is good to know that we have people like Edmund Haakonson and organizations such as Pride House to recognize how amazing our human diversity really is, and yet how similar we all really are.