Indigenous Olympian inspires
Students honour groundbreaking Team Canada player
She grew up in a loving home where she was encouraged to pursue her keen interest in athletics.
“I was kind of a tomboy growing up, so I chased my dad everywhere,” says Brigette Lacquette. “My cousins played hockey and so did my dad, so I just kind of fell in love with the sport.”
After a shaky start on her first pair of skates — plastic pink ones she laced up at age four — Lacquette soon began to soar in her chosen sport.
One thing, though, was missing from her activity-filled childhood, where there was always a parent or extended family member willing to make the two-hour return trip twice a week for her hockey practice.
“I never had that female role model to relate to,” says Lacquette when we meet Wednesday at Winsport, “someone who came from where I came from.”
Today, Lacquette, the first First Nations player on Team Canada’s women’s hockey team headed to an Olympic Games, is serving as that role model for a new generation of kids. As one of the partner athletes with Classroom Champions (classroomchampions.org), Lacquette, who plays defence, is taking part in the charitable organization’s Circle year-long program. It connects kids in Canada with athletes who share an Indigenous heritage. Lacquette is mentoring kids from Piitoayis (Eagle Lodge) Family School in the city’s Inglewood community.
While she was eager to finally meet the children she’s already spoken to via video link, Lacquette is clearly emotional over the effort the students, who range from Grade 1 to 6, have put into greeting their mentor.
Watching her and her teammates at a practice before they head later this month to South Korea for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, the excited children loudly cheer and call out her name. “She makes me think about our native culture,” Sarah MacDonell, 10, tells me after watching the action on the ice with her classmates. “She makes me feel proud.”
Along with honouring her with a drum ceremony, the students and their teachers also give Lacquette and some of her fellow Team Canada teammates traditional blankets, which they wrap around their shoulders.
“I was expecting to meet them, chat with them, sign some things,” says the 25-year-old hockey player, her eyes tearing up. “For them to honour us like that, it’s pretty special for me.”
Lacquette’s humble nature has been a hallmark of her character over the years, even as her star has risen on the international scene.
“She truly is the most naturally talented player to ever come through our program,” Shannon Miller, former University of Minnesota-Duluth women’s hockey head coach, told a reporter about Lacquette’s stint at the U.S. school.
She credits her parents, Terrence and Anita — they taught her to “stay humble and work my butt off,” she told one interviewer recently — for keeping her grounded. Being bullied as a child for a skin condition, she found sports to be an escape from life’s harsher moments.
“I had to go through obstacles,” she says on Wednesday, in reference to that earlier bullying and, later, racist comments from opposing players when she began to play in bigger venues a world away from her small-town upbringing in Mallard, Man., population about 100. “It was tough on my confidence. Luckily,” says Lacquette, who also has two hockey-playing siblings, “I had my dad there to coach me, to encourage me.”
Being paired up with the first Indigenous athlete to be named to Team Canada’s women’s hockey team isn’t just about all the good things sport can teach, says Don Braun.
“It’s really about preparation for life,” says Braun, Piitoayis’s principal. “Being around Brigette, the kids are learning about persevering, working hard and never giving up. She’s showing Indigenous kids that if you do that, the sky’s the limit.”
After nearly an hour with the kids, Lacquette is steered away from her fans by a Team Canada representative, who has her and her teammates on a tight schedule. Still, it’s clear that this other role she has right now is one for the long haul.
“I want to be the role model for them, just be the best player, the best person I can possibly be,” she says, adding she hopes to continue working with organizations like Classroom Champions long after her Olympics debut. “It’s truly special and exciting for me, and I’m humbled by it.”