Add the opening to your calendar

Join the guided exhibition tour

Opening : April 9 2026, 5–8pm, in presence of the artist.
Guided exhibition tour : April 10, 2026, 11am-1pm, tour by artist Lucas Morneau. RSVP required. Please write to Rosemarie Laporte at communication@lacentrale.org to register and for more details. 
Exhibition duration : April 9 to May 23, 206.

Place: La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, 4296 Saint-Laurent Blvd. 
Opening hours: Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday (12-5pm) and Thursday, Friday (12-6pm). 
Individual, group or school guided tours: Please write to communication@lacentrale.org. It will be our pleasure to guide you through this exhibition. 

Queer Newfoundland Hockey League (QNHL) is a fictional hockey league made up of 14 teams, all of which use pejoratives used against the LGBT2QIA+ community as team names. QNHL uses these pejoratives to reclaim the words often used against queer individuals both on and off the ice. These pejoratives, such as sissy and fag, are also often used against individuals who do not conform to the hegemonic masculinity often assigned to sports. Conformity and aggressivity are encouraged within masculine teams, whereas sensibility, difference and queerness remain grounds for exclusion. Teammates cannot be emotional, cannot draw attention to themselves, nor talk about personal issues without fear of reprisal.

Each jersey is hand crocheted and rughooked, using craft practices often delegated as “women’s work”. Some jerseys are rughooked using pantyhose worn by drag performers, an elastic and most unusual material. The stocking pairs with the practice of rughooking to highlight the historical importance of rughooking in Newfoundland, as well as an ingenious initiative that emerged in the province’s rural communities: the collection of silk stockings, later transformed into mats by women employed by the Grenfell Mission.

Some jerseys reference historical teams from the numerous senior hockey leagues that have existed in the province’s history, while others utilize colours no longer found on NHL jerseys. Purple, for instance, was quite a popular colour used on many jerseys such as the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks (then known as the Mighty Ducks). Throughout the years, both teams have put away the vibrant coloring to favor mostly black jerseys.

Each jersey is paired with a crochet goalie mask, stylized as a doily. These goalie doilies reference the introduction of the goalie mask and its first full-time NHL user Jacques Plante, who was ridiculed and mocked for wearing a mask after sustaining serious injuries during a game. Many players and fans questioned Plante’s bravery and dedication to the game due to his mask It however gained acceptance after Plante compared not wearing a mask to skydiving without a parachute, “if a man jumps out of an airplane without a parachute, does that make him brave?” (“Masks for goalies gain acceptance”, 1969). Each team also is paired with a hockey card of a fictional player, comprising of men, women, and gender-nonconforming characters. And as a little surprise: each pack of hockey cards is packed with a stick of ABC (already been chewed) gum.

QNHL is conceived as a celebration of exuberance and of a queer, expansive masculinity, humorously overturning the intolerance, male hegemony, and homophobia embedded in sports culture. The exhibition commits to inclusion and to the deconstruction of gender codes, with the aim of celebrating a new, positive and accepting masculinity for sports enthusiasts.

Lucas Morneau (they/he) is an interdisciplinary artist and curator from Ktaqmtuk (Newfoundland). Employing drag as a central tool in their practice, Morneau blends textiles, photography, video, and sculpture to queer Newfoundland/Canadian cultural traditions, exploring gender performativity and challenging the dominance of heteronormative and patriarchal systems within Canada and Newfoundland. Morneau has exhibited solo exhibitions throughout Canada, as well as exhibited in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. They received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Memorial University of Newfoundland—Grenfell Campus (2016) and a Master of Fine Arts from University of Saskatchewan (2018). They currently live in the Siknikt district of Mi’kma’ki (Sackville, New Brunswick).

Photo credit: Annie France Noël