NEW CANADIANS IN THE LINEUP
Numbers down, focus on diversity
The collective chatter grows to a deafening din, leaving no doubt this is a typical hockey dressing room.
Listen closer, though, and one could hear the kids’ conversations are not just in English, but in Arabic.
This is Jim Durrell Arena on a weekday morning in late March, where 80-plus pupils from Blossom Park and General Vanier public schools have poured out of yellow buses to participate in a unique skating program.
Nearly all of these grades 3, 4 and 5 pupils are new Canadians, from Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, among other countries.
For most of these participants, it’s only their third time on ice, but it doesn’t show. Instructors note there are fewer board-clingers and more risk takers. Even Sayan, who once held onto his red skating support for dear life, is venturing out to mid-ice on his own.
Others, given a helping hand by this Hockey Canada and Hockey Eastern Ontario program, have branched out to other skating opportunities outside of school.
Eleven-year-old Ahmad Almohoud stands out from the crowd. Ahmad plays house league in the Southend Minor Hockey Association, but wears a white Kanata Blazers jersey his father found for him at a store.
Ahmad is from Syria and has been in Canada for a little more than two years. Asked what he likes about Canada, Ahmad says, “It’s fun when you skate.”
That he can do. At the end of the one-hour session, Ahmad is one of seven or eight skaters who line up at the red line alongside instructor Ruggles Pritchard. Spotting his fellow skaters a slight lead, Ahmad roars from behind to breeze past his peers toward the far blue-line — diving on their bellies as they cross the line.
“He’s an amazing kid,” says Pritchard, who runs the Initiation Program (IP) for Hockey Eastern Ontario (HEO). “The minute we put a stick in his hand, you could see he could play.”
There were no sticks used this day, but Ahmad says his South-End atom team has already “won the cup — and we have another two playoffs.”
BUILDING NEW PLAYERS, FROM THE FLOOR UP
This third and final skate represents the icing on a program that began with the introduction of floorball to three local schools with high enrolment of newcomers — Blossom Park, General Vanier and York Street public schools. Sweden loves its floorball, and sees a link between the nation’s hockey prowess and its skills learned on the floor. New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and retired superstar forward Peter Forsberg are strong advocates, and hockey icon Borje Salming created a popular line of floorball equipment.
Before the 2016-17 season, Hockey Canada bought several floorball “kits” at $1,000 each, with an eye toward using them as an introductory tool to help grow the game.
Jeff Baker, manager of operations at HEO, says he borrowed a page from the Ontario Hockey Federation playbook, after that body had introduced floorball to some inner-city schools in Toronto.
Jeff Robert of the HEO office and IP instructor Tom Price brought the gear to the Ottawa schools — sticks, nets, balls, T-shirts and goalie masks — and provided staff and students with a one-hour introduction to the sport.
What’s old is new again — students of all ages can recall when the highlight of any gym class was a game of floor hockey, whether with long wooden poles and a synthetic ring or plastic sticks and a ball.
Not surprisingly, the floorball concept took off.
At Blossom Park, staff and students formed a six-team league, using Original Six hockey names. An exhibition game was arranged between the student league champs and an “all-star” group of teachers and HEO staff. In a packed gymnasium, with the Hockey Night in Canada theme playing in the background, there was an official “puck drop,” players were introduced by name and a skills event was held between periods.
In the end, the bad guys (the adults) had the edge 11-10, but fun won out.
By late January, Blossom Park and General Vanier decided they were ready for Phase 2 of the program, three on-ice sessions. In conjunction with the Ottawa Senators, HEO has a stash of used hockey gear and found 400 pairs of skates for the kids to use this year and beyond. Grant money was used to buy helmets.
The Canada 150 Parliament Hill rink was booked for the second skate in February, but freezing rain caused cancellation of the buses, so the event moved indoors. Now, the three skates are in the books, but with plans to expand the program next fall to as many as seven more schools. An application is in the works for a $20,000 Shell Community Grant to cover the costs of 16 floorball programs, seven “try skating ” programs and one full-gear, Canadian Tire First Shift program at Blossom Park.
The driving forces at the schools are energetic principals Patty Gollogly (Blossom Park) and Jeremy Nowiski (General Vanier). Both are determined to keep enthusiasm high, as a payback to HEO’s support and to benefit new Canadian kids.
“It’s levelling that playing field, so everyone has an entry point,” says Gollogly, presiding over a school where trip permission sheets often come back in Arabic. Roughly 75 per cent of students enrolled at Blossom Park speak English as a second language.
“They arrived here interested in soccer,” Gollogly says, “but it’s neat to see the change, the interest in hockey. Like anything new, they were scared at first. But now — oh my gosh, the stories — they are so excited.”
“The kids have really taken off with it,” Nowiski says. “It’s an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
“A lot of them are outside their comfort zone — they’re new to Canada, new to the culture, new to the elements, but there are smiles on the kids’ faces. That’s the important thing.”
Beaming as they come off the ice are Vanier pupils Mohammad Mohammad and Abdul Halim Zamel, both nine. Mohammad says he came from Syria, then Jordan and, finally, Canada. “Me too,” Halim says. They have had a chance to play a bit of hockey, along with this skating program.
“You use the stick to shoot the puck,” Mohammad says. “It’s a lot of fun, because skating, you just skate around but the hockey you play and get a lot of energy.”
Halim said he loved the drill where he got to dive under a stick, hung between two buckets.
Nadia El Moussabbaq and her family (her husband and two boys) came to Canada six years ago from Morocco, via Saudi Arabia. They wanted a better education for sons Ayman, 11, and Abdellatif, 14.
Ayman attends Blossom Park and was thrilled to be part of the skating program. When the trip buses were cancelled one day due to weather, he was devastated.
“He is excited, having fun, challenging himself,” Nadia says. “He didn’t have a chance to do this (skate) before he came to Canada.
“Morocco has no snow and no hockey arenas.”
Ayman and Abdellatif grew up playing soccer and basketball, and have joined soccer clubs in Ottawa. For Ayman, though, hockey is working its way into the conversation. He follows the NHL’s Senators and has his parents’ blessing to play organized hockey in the future if he desires.
“If he wants to play on a team, he can do it,” Nadia says. “It’s his choice. I have no objection to it.”
Nadia recognizes the value in sport and learning skills as part of developing the whole person.
“He is not afraid of skating,” she says. “If he falls down, he gets back up. And tries to find his balance. He is challenging himself to know how to skate.
“When he challenges himself, he gets stronger and stronger. In my opinion, it is not just about skating. He is learning a life skill, patience and so on. These things they learn when they’re small, help them when they grow up.”
The family has also discovered hockey’s place in this country.
“When you learn hockey, maybe you learn about Canada,” Nadia says. “Canada is famous for hockey.”
To show their gratitude, a class at Blossom Park created a booklet complete with individual photos and letters of thanks to HEO and Hockey Canada for the opportunity to skate.
Thank you, Mr. Pritchard, for teaching me how to stand up on the ice.
And not to be so scared
— Sayan Majumder
I always thought it was hard, but it wasn’t — Bilqis Ali Thank you for giving us this privilege for free — when it’s a lot of money — Dhari Hedairi