781: A Story of Sports and Survival in Canadian Residential School

In yesterday’s Part Two of this five-part series, residential school survivor Eugene Arcand talked about his dysfunctional life as a young adult and athlete and getting to a better place. Today, Eugene shares his stories of his hockey heroes.

Eugene’s story comes with this advisory: It could be triggering and traumatic for residential school survivors and/or their families. The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of his or her residential school experience. Call 1-800-721-0066 and/or visit the First Nations Health Authority website, fnha.ca.

By Eugene Arcand

Residential school took away so much from me, but it was there, at Duck Lake as a small boy, I found my heroes.

I remember being only seven or eight years old when I saw a film about Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School (in Carlisle, Penn.) that Thorpe attended before going on to become an Olympian and one of the greatest athletes in the world. He was a hero to me.

Another one of my heroes was Gordie Howe. I remember being at St. Michael’s and on Saturday night we would all sit around and watch Hockey Night in Canada on this little black and white TV. All the kids would cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens, but I didn’t like either one of those teams.

I heard the commentators talking about this young hockey player from Saskatoon, Sask., on the Detroit Red Wings and his name was Gordie Howe. I knew nothing about him, but from that moment forward, because he was from Saskatoon, he was a hero to me. Years later, when I got to see Gordie play, I loved him even more because he played hockey the way I wanted to play the game.

My No. 1 hero was Fred Sasakamoose, a