We Were Hockey Heroes

I recently lost my cousin Joey Okimaw. We were childhood friends who had grown up together since we first entered grade school in Attawapiskat. Joey’s parents are Margaret and Peter Okimaw. Margaret is my first cousin and she is the daughter of my uncle Alex and aunt Susan Kataquapit. It was always exciting to be around Joey when we were kids because he was the first grandchild in Alex’s family. It meant that Joey and his siblings Gregory and June were always surrounded by a group of young, vibrant aunts and uncles. Alex’s children are Janie, John, Rosalyn, Bertha, Evelyn, Morris, James, David, Helen and Margaret. They are all older than me, so we younger cousins, looked up to all of them.

My favourite memories of Joey and Alex’s family are around a game of hockey. The first time I can remember playing hockey was with a bunch of young Kataquapit boys in the early winter when I was about eight or nine years old. In addition to Alex’s family, several other Kataquapit cousins would join these games. The usual outdoor rink had not been built or set up yet but the older boys had discovered a small pond that had formed in the field behind the old JR Nakogee Elementary School.

They cleared a space big enough for a playing surface and everyone was called for an outdoor game without boards or any real rules. Two small mounds of snow formed goal posts at either end of the ice and several dozen sticks were piled at the center to divide everyone into two teams. A volunteer was called forward, told to kneel in front of the sticks, blindfolded and then they grabbed a stick to toss it right and left, one at a time. After this short ceremony, a chaotic game of 20 on 20 began with a face-off between our two oldest players, flanked by teenagers playing forward positions and smaller kids in defensive rear positions. No one ever wanted to be a goalie, so that post was routinely rotated to whoever was ordered to mind the net.

As cold as it became on those winter afternoons, we were just happy to be outside doing something. It was a welcome break from our homes which were overcrowded with family. My home at the time was a four-bedroom space for nine children, two parents and our grandfather. It was the mid-1980s and we didn’t have running water in our homes. We used a honey bucket inside the house which was routinely emptied every day. Grey water from the kitchen and bathroom was handled in the same way. A tank of fresh water was kept next to the stove and it was regularly refilled with either water we hauled directly from the river, snow we gathered from undisturbed drifts outside the community or ice we collected with axes from the riverside. Moving water in any form was a daily chore we all had to contend with. Everyone’s home at the time was the same, except for the local church, the Hudson Bay store, the store manager's house, the hospital, the nurses' residence, the local school and several of the school teachers' residential homes.

Those simple games out in the cold with my cousin Joey and all the rest of my Kataquapit cousins were the best hockey I ever played. The score never seemed to matter because as the day progressed, players came and went and the two teams either dwindled and reorganized or the ice swelled with way too many players. Joey was a great player as he was trained constantly by his uncles and he was a natural talent. It was great fun to play with his younger brother Gregory and their younger sister June was never far away to watch the game. We spoke only Cree and we all laughed and played in our traditional language.

During those games, we forgot about how hard our world was. It was a break that allowed us to forget we were living in the remote north without the same conveniences as the rest of the country. As kids, we forgot about the chaos and dysfunction brought about by the adult troubles of alcoholism and drug addiction. We were able to forget about how our local families were treated differently from the rest of Canada. For a few hours on those cold winter afternoons, we were momentary hockey heroes who played for a winning team. I will always remember Joey and his uncles on that frozen outdoor pond in Attawapiskat. Kee-sah-kee-eh-tee-nan Joey (We love you Joey).

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