Teaming up Oakville and Attawapiskat
Hockey exchange program brings kids together to learn about each other’s culture
Gabriel Hookimaw, Gavin Peesker and Blake Cooper have one very important thing in common: they are all young, devoted hockey fans.
Aside from that, it would seem that the kids lead drastically different lives. Hookimaw, 13, lives in Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, while Peesker, 13, and Cooper, 12, live in suburban Oakville. (They also disagree on which team is the best — Hookimaw likes the Oilers, Peesker and Cooper like the Habs).
But they’ll be side-by-side next week — playing hockey as part of amalgamated teams meant to foster connections and cross-cultural appreciation.
“We’re going to play with them, not against them,” Peesker said.
The kids are taking part in Hockey Cares, the brain child of Oakville’s Sue Heddle. For the program,14 bantam Attawapiskat players will travel to Oakville next week. In November, 17 Oakville players will go to Attawapiskat, where they’ll play hockey and learn about the local culture.
The Hockey Cares committee obtained support from Experiences Canada, and was awarded funds from the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund to run the exchange, in addition to private donations.
Heddle thought of the idea because she was struck that Ontarians seemed to mobilize more effectively for international disasters than for troubled communities in their own province, like Attawapiskat.
“I felt like I needed to do something so that Canadians would pay attention to what’s going on in our own backyard,” Heddle said, referring to the crises of housing and youth suicide in the northern community.
One way to do that, she thought, was to facilitate an occasion for the young people of both places to realize some common ground.
Hockey was a ready-made solution, since its roots in each community run deep.
“They love sports, that’s for sure,” said Steve Kataquapit, Hookimaw’s father and the coach of the Attawapiskat team. “But that’s one thing that’s a shortfall here — activities.”
Kataquapit says that the team rarely attends tournaments because it is too expensive to travel from their remote nation. The farthest they usually go is for an annual tournament in Timmins, a two-and-a-halfhour flight away.
That makes this program a unique opportunity for the team to connect with other young hockey players, and travel to a community that is different from their own.
Hookimaw said that, since he’s never been to Oakville or the vicinity before, he’s looking forward to playing hockey with the kids there, then showing them his own home in November.
The participants had an opportunity to connect over Skype a few weeks ago, when they learned that they shared some favourite teams and hockey players.
“People think there aren’t many common things with the Indigenous people and the people here,” Cooper said. “But there really are lots of things in common.”
The cohorts from Oakville and Attawapiskat are each preparing itineraries filled with activities they’d like to share with their peers.
Kataquapit said that he’s hoping they’ll be able to organize a traditional powwow and teach the Oakville kids how to prepare geese.
These are activities Peesker and Cooper are looking forward to.
“I’m really excited to learn about their culture, doing what they do. The traditional things, eating their food,” Peesker said.
Heddle hopes to register Hockey Cares as a charity so that, once the Oakville and Attawapiskat crews get connected, the “template” of Hockey Cares may be replicated by other communities.
“They want to learn. They want to know this stuff,” she said of the kids’ enthusiasm for the program.