Grantland Quarterly #1

McSweeney's just published the second issue of the Grantland Quarterly, which is available on a shelf near you. If you look carefully, you can find one of my illustrations inside.

I was approached a few months ago to draw one of my favorite subjects for the quarterly: hockey. A couple of years back, while in school, I'd done a visual essay on the St. Louis Blues. It stills stands as one of my favorite projects, so I was delighted that I was basically getting paid to add to it.  

The article was about Pat Lafontaine and his son - who nows plays hockey on a high school travel team. 

However, this article was taken out of the quarterly...so the illustration was killed. However, there was another article to replace it, this one about head trauma in the NHL. And here you have it:

You can see the earlier hockey illustrations at hirshon.net, on page 3 of the illustration section. As a bonus, here are some sketches: 

The first article talked about high school players balancing their heavy play schedule with SATs and college hunting. I was a little disappointed that this sketch wasn't chosen.

The first article also talked about the dedicated parents who would drive their sons all over the state for games.

AD: Juliet Litman (thanks for the great assignment!)