Chalk this one up for poet who wrote The Last Puck

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Trevor Hagan/Winnipeg Free Press Graham Hnatiuk, 25, chalks up the approach to the Assiniboine Park footbridge.

I wanted to say "stop." I wanted to say, "Surely some of you are Winnipeg Jets fans. Read this."

Instead I just watched.

It was a Saturday morning a couple of weekends ago as I watched people cross the footbridge to Assiniboine Park and keep going. They walked over words on the pavement as if they were written in invisible ink instead of chalk.

Then, just as blindly, they passed over a rendering of the new Jets logo.

Below the logo, in blue chalk, three words echoed from the past.

"Your Winnipeg Jets."

The introduction that thundered through the Winnipeg Arena when our NHL team took to the ice; before they took off for Phoenix; after we were told that Winnipeg wasn't big enough, rich enough or together enough to be in the hockey big leagues.

Actually, I didn't notice the logo either.

Not until after I'd read the words of The Last Puck, an ode to the Jets and Winnipeg that takes the reader back and forward in time, ending with this proud prediction of something that, as we all know, actually happened:

"When we meet in the street

You'll know why

the heart of this city

will never die"

It's a graceful, evocative poem and unlike so much of what could be classified as graffiti -- even in wash-away chalk -- The Last Puck was signed by its author:

"Graham Hnatiuk."

Who, I wondered, is Graham Hnatiuk?

-- -- --

I found him and The Last Puck in the most predictable place.

On the Internet.

It turns out he is 25 years old and grew up in East St. Paul with his brother and his parents, who are market gardeners.

It also happens there's more to Graham Hnatiuk than writing poetry on pavement, or even drawing logos and painting. Much more, in fact, than even his other pursuits would suggest.

Graham is also a bartender, a busker, a blogger and a citizen journalist, as he calls himself.

His blog, which has recently touched on issues ranging from the civil war in Libya to the homeless here at home, is called Progressive Winnipeg.

And on June 9 at 4:09 p.m., just over a week after the NHL's return was made official, Graham posted The Last Puck, with this brief preamble.

"I came across this yesterday. I wrote it about two years ago. It is strangely fitting today."

Such prescience.

When I reached him on the phone, Graham said he wrote the poem after seeing an art-house documentary about Winnipeg losing the Jets called Death By Popcorn. The title was a reference to a mockumentary cameo appearance by a fan who claims to have thrown the box of popcorn on the ice in a fateful game between Winnipeg and Edmonton that reversed the momentum and led to the Jets losing game six of the first round of the 1990 Stanley Cup playoffs to the Oilers.

"It started by me trying to write something poetic about Death by Popcorn," Graham said.

The rest "wrote itself" in less than 10 minutes.

Graham called the result "an accident," but his talent is no accident. Neither was putting his name at the bottom of the version he left in the park.

It was the first time since he began "chalking" in the park that he had signed a work.

I told Graham, the way a father tells a son, I am proud of him. Not just because of his talent as an artist, but because of the way he's taken it to the street. That and his passion for journalism.

There's something else Graham's justly proud of, which he talks about the second time we speak.

He had just been accepted as an artist-in-residence at Artbeat Studio, in The Exchange.

"It's a non-profit that works with people with mental illness. They take nine artists for six months to allow them a space and a safe environment to work art while getting help."

I asked Graham if he'll be teaching there.

He said no.

He told me he has a major depression disorder.

I was taken aback.

Then I realized there's something about Graham Hnatiuk underlying his sensitivity, intelligence and talent.

Something that made me even more proud of him.

He's dealing with, and winning, his struggle.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

The Last Puck

A century of suns fold,

Over the facades of old

Hiding beauty so long forgot,

Remembering a journey

impossible to plot

You're laughing but

Death by Popcorn made us all fans

by the time the curtains closed

We gave a standing-o,

chanting those three words everyone knows

After the last puck dropped

the Wings took off,

the Queen came down and

we got a little teary-eyed

every time someone said

it couldn't be done,

they'd never be back and,

maybe Stanley would never be won

When we meet in the street

You'll know why

the heart of this city

will never die

-- Graham Hnatiuk

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 9, 2011 B1