Trailblazing Indigenous NHL player for Chicago

Fred Sasakamoose began skating on blades his grandfather had tied to his moccasins. His hockey stick was a willow branch. A disk of cow manure served as the puck. The rink was a frozen lake.

It was a far cry from the National Hockey League. But that’s where he landed.

Mr. Sasakamoose played only 11 games in the NHL as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1953-54 season. But his impact was outsized: Mr. Sasakamoose was one of the first Indigenous athletes to play Canada’s national pastime at the highest level.

That turned him into a hero for First Nations people in a country that often marginalized them. He later spent decades mentoring and encouraging young Indigenous players across the country; in 2018, he was made a member of the Order of Canada, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors.

“There’ve been many Indigenous players since I started, but it’s good to think I inspired Indian kids way back then,” Mr. Sasakamoose wrote in a memoir, “Call Me Indian,” to be published in April. “Showed them, showed everyone, that we could make it in the white world. That’s more important than any award.”

Mr. Sasakamoose died Nov. 26 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He was 86. The NHL, which announced his death, said he had been hospitalized with complications of COVID-19.

Reggie Leach, the NHL’s first Indigenous superstar, was among those who paid tribute.

“A lot of people say he only played 11 games,” Mr. Leach told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., “but those 11 games were everything to our First Nations people.”

Frederick Sasakamoose was born on Christmas Day 1933 in the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, in central Saskatchewan. He was one of 11 children, six of whom did not survive childhood.

When he was 6, agents from the Canadian government came to the reservation and threw him and his brother Frank into a truck. They were among the many Indigenous children in Canada who were forcibly removed from their families for schooling.

“We didn’t know what the heck was going on,” he told journalist Aaron Lakoff for a 2018 episode of Boston public radio station WBUR’s podcast “Only a Game.”

Mr. Sasakamoose would spend years at St. Michael’s, one of Canada’s notorious residential schools, in Duck Lake, about 60 miles from home. The schools, financed by the government but run largely by churches, operated from 1883 until 1998, when the last one closed. The government has apologized for the practice and compensated survivors.

Life at St. Michael’s was grim, but Mr. Sasakamoose found joy playing hockey.

A mentor, the Rev. Georges Roussel, a Roman Catholic priest, took him to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to play junior hockey — a feeder to the pros. After four seasons, Mr. Sasakamoose learned he had been selected by the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL.

He made his league debut Nov. 20, 1953, against the Boston Bruins. Over his 11 games, he played against legends like Gordie Howe and Maurice “Rocket” Richard.

Mr. Sasakamoose, a center, was nimble on the ice, but he failed to score in the NHL and spent the rest of his career in the minor leagues.

Still, those 11 games would be enough to feed the dreams of a new generation of Indigenous players. A handful now play in the NHL and on the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team.

In later years, Mr. Sasakamoose served a term as chief of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation. He also developed sports programs for Indigenous youth, including a tournament for First Nations teams, the Fred Sasakamoose “Chief Thunderstick” Championship.

Information on his survivors was not immediately available.