The Greatest

EMMA, a pro hockey player, is tragically cut from the national team and left with nothing. Devastated, her mental health plummets and she moves back in with her parents in Sudbury, Ontario. A place she hasn’t really been back to since she was drafted at 17.

It turns out Emma’s not the only one back home though. Everyone she went to high school with is back home too. She re-connects with all the people from her teenage years she never wanted to see again, and gets to experience things she never got to do in school the first time around. It’s like high school 2.0.

But she’s not 17 anymore. Everything has changed. People she thought she knew have evolved, and things that used to be black-and-white are now very grey. Emma re-examines everything she thought she knew—about her family, friends, and herself.

All the while Emma’s untreated mental illness gets worse. Her high school-like behaviour inspires awful decision-making, and she ends up hurting people.

Emma from page 1 would just give up. But she’s changed; realizing how much she now values her new life in Sudbury, Emma makes amends with everyone she’s wronged, finds a job she actually sees a future in, and engages with the mental health work she’s been rejecting. She ends her story surrounded by all the people she loves; a new future on the horizon. It’s not the future she originally envisioned for herself but it’s a great one nonetheless.