jamie drysdale on the what chaos! podcast | 07.29.26

What's the first "big news story" you remember from when you were a kid?

It's something I love to ask mixed-aged groups sometimes because I think it's really interesting to see the responses. I've gotten answers from the Olympics of [whatever year] to Watergate to more recent stuff from my niblings.

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.