Celebrating coaches

The community of Garden River is celebrating Jordan Nolan’s Stanley Cup victory, and rightfully so. Winning the Stanley Cup is a big deal. Being a 22-year-old Ojibwa man and doing so is even bigger. Jordan’s success is a testament not only to the ability that First Nations youth have, but also to all the hard work that his parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles and the entire community put into raising him.
Sport is an excellent way of focusing youth energy into positive experiences. Whether it’s playing hockey like the Nolan family, or track and field like the Sandy Lake track team we profiled two weeks ago, sport teaches life skills while keeping young people away from the temptations of all the destructive things out there.
Art and music has the same power. Just look at the effect that a dance program has had on Lac La Croix, and it is easy to see that if youth are given the chance to shine and pushed to reach their goals, they flourish.
But what about those youth who are not into sports, who do not participate in dance programs or go to youth gatherings or even, in many cases, go to school?
Charlie Cheechoo, deputy chief of Moose Cree, knows all about those youth.
Talking to reporters in Moose Factory a few weeks ago, Cheechoo was blunt about what he sees in his community. Drug dealers on every corner, he said. A lot of alcohol abuse. Not a lot for youth to do.
“Life ain’t so great in Moose Factory for the kids,” he said.
Cheechoo has been bringing youth out on the land for the past two years with Project George, a program that teaches youth to hunt, trap and fish. He’s working with kids who don’t play sports, who don’t go to youth events. Many of them come from homes with a lot of drug and alcohol abuse. Cheechoo calls them “the kids we’re missing.”
Through Project George, those young people are getting the chance to learn their traditions and learn how to survive on the land, while having fun at camp.
There is an element of pride – the youth are getting to know what their culture is all about, and discover skills they might not have been exposed to before.
But often the biggest benefit comes from just getting out on the land.
Getting away from all the petty arguments and worries of living in town, and away from the temptations of drugs and alcohol.
Having a chance to sit quietly and listen to the wind in the trees.
Getting the opportunity to talk and share with friends around a campfire.
Cheechoo has seen a big effect already. He speaks of one young man who was going to commit suicide the very day that Cheechoo went to pick him up for a camping trip, who has now found a reason to keep on living. He speaks of a youth who never cast a rod before, who said he did not like to fish to hide the fact he did not know how, and how excited that young man was when he reeled in his first big walleye. And he speaks of the lasting effect this program will have on youth who are discovering a big part of what it means to be a First Nations person.
But what Cheechoo glosses over is one of the most important parts of the story. He barely mentions how he goes to young people’s houses early in the mornings, to get them up and ready for the trips. How he has been beating the corporate bushes, from Moose Factory to Timmins, looking for funding and support. How he spends most of his days off all summer long out in the bush with the youth. And how when they get out to camp, he is there for the youth as a supervisor, a teacher, a councillor and a friend.
Jordan Nolan would not have got to where he is today without many great coaches along the way. Those coaches who dedicated countless early mornings running hockey practices, who spent evenings all winter working with Jordan and his teammates on their hockey skills, who taught them life skills on and off the ice. Most of those coaches were volunteers, doing it because they wanted to help the kids. Most of them go unheralded, which is probably the way they want it anyways.
Charlie Cheechoo’s work with Project George, and the work of all the other good people who are doing their small part to make the world a better place, should not be overlooked. For all the youth who make it, whether winning a Stanley Cup or catching their first walleye, it is people like Cheechoo who are holding the ladder for them to climb.