꒰ა( •̤ᴗ•̤ )໒꒱

like a lot of stuff that's heralded as canadian culture, the making of hockey comes from indigenous traditions. mi'kmaq people carved the first hockey sticks from ironwood. the lakota souix played shinny like 200 years before it was called hockey. thousands of years before skating was a sport or an artform, the iroquois attached blades to their shoes, made from elk and cariboo tibias, to aid them in moving across the ice.

during the playoffs, rogers (canadian telecom giant) came out with an ad campaign about how hockey is "our game" and it made my blood boil a little, how overwhelmingly white hockey is even though as an indigenous person, it feels kinda like my game in particular.

i've seen indigenous players like chris simon (nika-kakwê-wânaskân) and jordin tootoo be on relied as agitators and enforcers, heard about young players facing abuse from coaching staff, have racist comments made about them online and have their name mocked on espn.

i've never seen an indigenous player be raised up for his skill with such excitement by the hockey community until gavin mckenna, and i was so glad to see him go 1st oa. i was on facetime with my cousin on draft day. we watched gavin get called up, saw his beadwork, saw his clearly indigenous family on the screen. we cried about it a little together, finally feeling like maybe this is our game, a little bit more than it was before.

hi! apparently there are a bunch of old matches posted around youtube? Some of them are in playlists others you just have to search by year and team. I’ll link what I’ve found below:

- this channel has the best archive from what I could find, ranging from 1970s to early 2020s.

- this guy has a compilation playlist. some of it is the same as the previous link. a few 2020s strays, lots of stuff until 2015 and early 2000s.

- another channel, organised by series but games are only up to 2012.

- some more random games that I could find along with the caps series in 08’ and round 2 vs the habs in the same year.

- if you’d like to see us lose badly, there’s the 2016 caps series

- full 2010 playoff run (good luck! hope you don’t die! I am definitely not emotionally ready to watch and won’t be anytime soon)

- 2012 round one against the pens! incredible to see the similarities and differences between last season and this one. best power play in the playoffs, can you believe it? finished the series at 52%!!

- I’ve only just started round two vs devils and I legit got a jumpscare with how loud the crowd was. game 1 already had ygdb being mr playoffs and the broadcast waxing poetic about claude nonstop.

I’ll try and keep this updated if I find any more. Have fun!

true north aid (an organization aimed at providing support to remote/northern indigenous people in canada)

canadian red cross wildfire fund

ontario spca and humane society (links to their donate page specifically aimed at supporting pets and animals in areas impacted by the fires)

25-26 player collages (1/?) | connor dewar