SASAKAMOOSE SET EXAMPLE LONG AFTER PLAYING CAREER WAS OVER
First Indigenous NHL player says he’s honoured to be named to Order of Canada
The timing was terrific.
At 2 p.m. Friday, the recipients of Order of Canada honours were announced in Ottawa. One of them, Fred Sasakamoose, was named for his trail-blazing contributions as the first Canadian Indigenous player in the NHL, and for his work in seeking the betterment of his community through sports.
At 7 p.m., Sasakamoose dropped the puck for the ceremonial opening faceoff between the Chicago Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers.
It was the only trip to Edmonton this year for the Blackhawks.
Back in 1954, Sasakamoose came straight out of junior hockey in Moose Jaw and suited up for the final 11 games of the NHL season with Chicago. Friday night, he wore an Oilers jersey and a First Nations beaded Blackhawks necklace created by one of the elders of his Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
The last time Sasakamoose was at centre ice for a ceremonial faceoff before an Oilers game it was 2014. He was in Edmonton for the seventh and final meeting of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
It was then that I sat with Sasakamoose, who had tears running down his face as he told me his story of abuse during the days of residential schools, a story he had only recently decided to share with the world. He was in Edmonton to tell it to the commission.
On Friday night, Sasakamoose had tears trickling down the wrinkles around his eyes as he spoke about the Order of Canada honour while surrounded by six chiefs from Saskatchewan.
“Two weeks ago when they phoned me, I was just amazed to get this kind of recognition for my life,” he began. “It made me a true Canadian.
“It’s a great thing for my people. But I want to share it with a lot of people. I didn’t do it alone. I could never have done it alone.”
Sasakamoose was born on Christmas Day 1933, at Sandy Lake reserve in northern Saskatchewan.
When he was six, a truck pulled up, and as his mother cried, he was taken away to a residential school.
“They took my language away. My pride. My long hair. My braids,” he said back in 2014.
“The first two years, in 1940 and 1941, I never went home,” he said of his 10 years of residential schooling.
Hockey made residential school survivable for Sasakamoose, he said Friday.
“One day the priest came up to me and said, ‘I’m going to make a champion out of you Freddie.’ And he was right.
“There was a white man named George Vogan from Moose Jaw. He found me. It took him four days to find me. I was a 15-yearold boy and he took me to junior hockey in Moose Jaw. Indian boy. The white man walking down the road allowance to come to me, he was a big man. He took my hand and led me down the roadway. Now I’m decorated with the Order of Canada.
“I didn’t do it alone. I always figured the world outside the reservation, the white man’s world, was not made for me. But I was wrong. Today, with this honour Canada has given me, I know I was wrong.”
After he came back from pro hockey, Sasakamoose essentially disappeared from the hockey world. By deciding to re-emerge and tell his story, he became an inspiration.
There’s nothing politically correct about Sasakamoose. He wants to be called an Indian and he likes the fact that so many teams in sport are named Blackhawks, etc.
“I get asked what I think of Indians, Redskins and Braves? I think that’s good. I like that,” he said Friday night.
Sasakamoose remembers getting back to Moose Jaw from Edmonton and his coach, Vogan, gathering the players.
“George opened a telegram. It read ‘Fred Sasakamoose. Please report immediately to the Blackhawks to play in Toronto on Hockey Night In Canada.’
“I was on the ice at Maple Leaf Gardens warming up when I was called over to the boards. It was Foster Hewitt,” Sasakamoose said, referring to the longtime Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster.
“‘How do you pronounce your name?’ he asked me. ‘Is it Saskatchewan moose or Saskatoon moose?’”
When he stepped on the carpet Friday night, there were the Chicago Blackhawks, wearing those classic red uniforms with the Indian head crest on the chest.
“It was big news. It was a big deal. I was an Indian with an Indian on my sweater,” he said. “But it suited me. Everything was Indian on that sweater. It was made for me.”
Sasakamoose went to Chicago camp the next year and was assigned to the minors. Before he left, his wife told him he had to choose between her and hockey. He didn’t get a single letter from her while he was at training camp.
“I made a choice. Chicago’s farm team back then was the Calgary Stampeders and I told Gus Kyle, ‘I’m going to go back home. I’m going to go back to my wife.’ The choice I made was a good choice. I’ve been married now for 62 years. I never made any money but I had the riches in life. I have kids — 131 of them,” he said of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
“Maybe I earned it. Maybe. But it belongs to all of you. I want to share.”