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3 7 | Thursday July 1 3, 2 0 1 7 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | w w w .insidehalton.com Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports "Connected to your Community " Brock Shisheesh fromAttawapiskat takes a breather on the bench during Saturday's Hockey Cares game. | photo by Riziero Vertolli - Oakville Beaver A new relationship Kids enjoy Oakville/Attawapiskat exchange Part 1 By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Defenceman Rhiley Kioke (top photo) clears the puck from in front of goalie Antonio Bevilacqua during Saturday's Hockey Cares game at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex while in above photo Attawapiskat's Keith Wheesk (in red) and Junior Jacasum (in white) chase after a loose puck. | photos by Riziero Vertolli - Oakville Beaver The players gathered in the atrium at Oakville Place, the pre-arranged m eeting spot after a shopping trip to the mall. As they waited, the players from Attawapiskat started doing bird calls. Their counterparts from Oakville gathered around to watch and listen. Soon enough, they were getting lessons on how to perform loon calls. It was hockey that brought them together. A com m on love for a game. And though it had taken more than a year of planning to bring the players from the First Nations com munity, for the trip' s organizer Sue Heddle, it was the spontaneous, unplanned m om ents that were the highlight. "It was the things like that, those impromptu moments, that I really liked," Heddle said, "seeing them interacting and learning from each other." Heddle was moved to do som e thing after hearing of the dire situa tion in Attawapiskat last year. More than 28 young people in the com m unity of 1,549 had attempted sui cide in a month. Over the years, Heddle had seen Canadians respond to international relief efforts. N ow she saw an op portunity to help people in her own province. "We have issues here that re quire our help, too," she said. "These people live in Ontario and they don't have sufficient drinking water; there' s a suicide epidemic. I wanted to do som ething for people in our own backyard." So Heddle began planning Hock ey Cares, an exchange between players from Attawapiskat and Oakville. Steve Kataquapit, the coach of the Attawapiskat team, said hockey has strong roots in the community. There are eight boys teams from tyke to midget, two girls teams as well as a m en' s and oldtimers league. Still, the nearest opponent, Kashechewan, on the western shore of James Bay, is an hour and a half to two hours away and is accessible by road only in the winter. For the m ost part, it' s local teams playing each other, practising twice a w eek and scrimmaging on weekends. "It' s been good," Nolan Koostachin, one of the 14 players w ho made the trip from Attawapiskat. "I'm having fun playing hockey with m y friends and m eeting new friends." "For the kids to com e here and create a connection, it' s a chance to do what Gord talked about, creat ing a new relationship with indig enous people," said Gene Jamieson from the Gord D ow nie & Chanie Wenjack Fund, w hich along with Experiences Canada, provided funding for the exchange. "W heth er you 're com ing together through hockey or music and using those com m on elements to create friend ships, it show s w e're not on two sides of the fence." The players weren't on different benches either. In order to enhance their interactions, players from both com m unities were combined on two teams. "It was really fun," said 14-yearold Abdul Ashour, a forward with the Oakville W olverines house league team. "M ixing up the teams and playing together really helped the friendships im prove." "It took a w hile for them to open up," Kataquapit said, "but now they're looking forward to them com ing up there." Koostachin is looking forward to show ing the local players their arena -- "and our slow Internet," a teammate chimed in. see Oakville on p. 38