Indigenous NHLer joins teammate in Order of Canada
Manitoba-born Leach among 83 appointees named for Canada Day
OTTAWA— Ask Reggie Leach about hockey and you can hear the joy in his voice as he talks about winning the Stanley Cup in his own playing days, and donning a Team Canada jersey and watching his children represent the country years later in hockey and lacrosse. And then the man known as the “Riverton Rifle” stops to think about the thank you the country is giving him this Canada Day for all he has done during and since his hockey career.
“Hockey to me was just a stepping stone to my life circle. I am more proud of what I did after hockey than what I did during my hockey days,” says Leach, who is Ojibwa.
Leach is among 83 new appointees to the Order of Canada, in a list that includes scientists, health-care advocates, jurists, actors, athletes and public servants.
They join nearly 7,000 people on the honour roll — “the elites that Canada has to offer,” Leach says — since its introduction more than five decades ago, including Leach’s relative, educator Rev. Frederic Leach.
Leach’s NHL career started in the fall of 1970, three years after the Order of Canada was created to mark Canada’s centenary.
Leach went from growing up poor in Riverton, Man., to playing alongside fellow Order of Canada member Bobby Clarke. The two hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1975.
The next year, Leach was named the most valuable player in the NHL playoffs — one of a very few from a team that didn’t win the championship — and donned the Team Canada jersey.
Leach regularly speaks to Indigenous youth about his life, hoping they don’t repeat his past missteps: “That’s what I live for today, is to help these kids out and get them in the right direction.”
Others are being promoted within the order, including some well-known faces from stages and screens: singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and actors Martin Short and Donald Sutherland.