It was adapted into an animated short called The Sweater (Le Chandail) by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in 1980 and illustrated by Sheldon Cohen.

The story is based on a real experience Carrier had as a child in Sainte-Justine, Quebec, in 1946 as a fan of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team and its star player, Maurice Richard.

In the aftermath of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, tensions between francophones within the province and anglophones escalated as a provincial movement, led by the governing Parti Québécois, to separate from Canada reached its peak in the late 1970s.

"[2] Carrier spent several weeks trying to answer the question, ultimately producing what he described as a "flat essay" that was "dull as an editorial in a newspaper".

And I remember it was when I put on my skates and my Eaton catalogues on my legs, and I stood up, and I was taller than my mom, and I had a stick in my hands, so I was stronger than my brother, and I felt that I was little me.

The story centres on the obsession he and his friends had with the Montreal Canadiens' organization and their star player, Maurice "The Rocket" Richard.

When the package arrives, the young Carrier is horrified to discover the sweater of the rival Toronto Maple Leafs was sent by mistake.

Carrier is so angry that he smashes his stick on the ice in frustration, for which the curate scolds him: "just because you're wearing a new Toronto Maple Leafs sweater unlike the others, it doesn't mean you're going to make the laws around here.

[1] Carrier wrote the story in French, and it first appeared in 1979 under the title "Une abominable feuille d'érable sur la glace" ("An abominable maple leaf on the ice") in a collection of his works called Les Enfants du bonhomme dans la lune (Children of the Man in the Moon).

[10] Following the success of the book, Cutler asked Carrier to write three more stories of his childhood to be illustrated by Cohen, each covering a different sport in a different season.

The original cast features an ensemble of mainly children, including Drew Davis, Berkley Silverman and led by Jesse Noah Gruman, among others.

The original production was choreographed and directed by Donna Feore, written by Emil Sher and composed by Jonathan Monro.

[6] Jason Blake, a professor of English at the University of Ljubljana, argued the irony of this in his book Canadian Hockey Literature.

[16] The conflicts Carrier experienced in The Hockey Sweater are sometimes viewed as being an allegory for the relationship and tensions between French and English Canada, as well as the rivalry between the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs.

It is accompanied by scenes of children playing outdoors in the winter, centred by one in a Montreal Canadiens sweater with Maurice Richard's number 9 on his back.

"[19] The story has also been set to music by composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte as part of a piece commissioned by the Toronto Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic and National Arts Centre Orchestras in 2012.