Hockey pioneer dies of COVID-19
SASKATOON, Sask. — Fred Sasakamoose, a Saskatchewanraised residential school survivor who went on to play in the National Hockey League, died Tuesday at age 86 after being hospitalized with COVID-19.
Sasakamoose, born on the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation near Shell Lake, was the first treaty Indian to play in the NHL.
“Fred passed away at 3 o’clock Saskatchewan time,” his son Neil said in a video posted to Facebook. “I just want to thank everyone for everything you’ve done.”
Sasakamoose suited up for 11 games with the Chicago Blackhawks in 1953-54 — he later recalled famed broadcaster Foster Hewitt calling down the penalty box at Maple Leaf Gardens, asking “How the hell do you pronounce your name?” — and spent several more years in minor-pro and senior hockey.
He later served as band chief, and spent time speaking to and working with kids and teens, imparting lessons he learned while growing up and as an adult.
He helped build a sports framework in his community after returning to the reserve following his playing days, and worked with the NHL’s Diversity Task Force and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
Sasakamoose spent much of his childhood at St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake. He publicly acknowledged in 2012, during a Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Prince Albert, that he was sexually abused by other children at the school when he was nine years old.
A couple years before that, a truck had collected him at his home and he was sent to Duck Lake.
“They changed our clothes, cut our hair,” Sasakamoose
— an Order of Canada recipient and an inductee into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame — told the StarPhoenix in 2007. “I had braids; they cut all that off. I was to become a white man. They told us not to speak our language.”
Sasakamoose became an accomplished hockey player at the residential school, and reluctantly joined the junior Moose Jaw Canucks after he went home for good in 1950.
The fast-skating Sasakamoose established himself quickly as a star, spent four seasons there, and was called up to the Blackhawks after the Canucks’ season ended in February of 1954.
The announcement came from team GM George Vogan, in the locker room after the final game.
“He looked at me,” Sasakamoose later recalled. “‘Fred Sasakamoose, you’ll report immediately to the Chicago Blackhawks. You’ll be playing
Saturday night in Toronto on Hockey Night in Canada.’ Everything went still. Why was it me? There was 18 other kids who could fit in the same as I could. But you should have seen the hugging. The joy. They wanted to cry. ‘You’re going to the NHL. You’re going.’ All this praise; there was no jealousy. There was no time for that.
“Then six women walked in with two suitcases. They put them down in front of me and said, ‘This is for you, Freddy. Clothes. You’re a professional now, and you’ve got to look like a professional.’”
Sasakamoose’s 11-game NHL career received wider notice later when his role as a hockey trailblazer became more widely known.
When he was inducted into the Saskatchewan Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012 — alongside greats like Gordie Howe and the Bentley brothers — he professed both pride and humility.
“It was only for 11 games, but those 11 games meant so much,” he said. “To break the barrier for the Indian kids, to be able to perform and play hockey … different things in life give you opportunity, and it’s who you are and how you present yourself to the world.
“It’s a proud moment for Indian people, together. Not me as an individual.”
Son Neil’s emotional 7
½ -minute video included his thoughts on the importance of staying safe until a vaccine arrives.
“Everyone, you keep safe. This is what happens with COVID-19,” Neil said.
“The reality is, my mother’s in isolation; she’s in a lockdown. My sister’s in a lockdown. This is what happens in COVID. We’re two months away from a vaccine. Everyone just bear down. Listen to your chiefs. Let them do what they have to do. Listen to your mayors. Listen to your premiers. Listen to the prime minister. Listen to the other party. Just listen and comply for a while. We’re going to get a vaccine soon. We’re going to get back to normal. I don’t get that chance anymore. My father’s going to miss it by two months.”