The 100 Mile Minor Hockey’s U 18 team will wear orange jerseys on some game days this season.
Last week the team officially received a set of numbered orange jerseys from the Orange Jersey Project to wear during games and tournaments. Gordon Moore said that as the team’s coach, he’s always looking for new ways to develop his players into both better hockey players and more rounded individuals.
“You teach kids not just how to play the game. At the root of any good coach, you’re just trying to build better human beings. All sports, not just hockey, teach a lot of really valuable life lessons that show up when the kids get older,” Moore said. “I’m a pretty big believer in the life lessons part of the sport taking precedent over who puts more little discs into the net.”
The Orange Jersey project was started three years ago, a spinoff of Orange Shirt Day started by Williams Lake resident and residential school survivor Phyllis Jack-Webstad. Like Orange Shirt Day, the project aims to help educate people, specifically athletes, about the intergenerational impacts of Canada’s residential school system to further the ongoing process of truth and reconciliation.
When Moore’s team received the jerseys last week he invited Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation elders Pam Theodore and her mother Elsie Archie to speak. Archie, who attended St. Joseph’s Residential School in Williams Lake, shared some of her story with the team.
“I told them how things were there and how important education is. When I was older I got my teacher’s degree after seven years and I was very proud. I cried,” Archie said. “I never ever believed one day I would graduate from a university, that was something to cry about.”
Theodore explained that residential schools were set up in part like a trades school and students were sent home after receiving a Grade 10 education. While there she said many students had their dignity taken away from them, represented by Jack-Webstad’s story of losing her orange shirt when she was sent to St. Joseph’s.
Archie herself stopped attending St. Joseph’s after Grade 8, telling her father she refused to go.
Theodore said she took the opportunity to remind the students about what Orange Shirt Day is all about and talk about what reconciliation means to her. She noted that governments like the District of 100 Mile House have worked quite hard in recent years to promote reconciliation.
“For me, reconciliation means working together and bringing everyone together so they understand what happened back then to ensure nothing like that ever happens again,” Theodore said. “We should teach immigrants coming in (to Canada) our history and what it means. Teaching the true history and incorporating it into our school systems is a big part of reconciliation for me.”
Moore said in addition to his respect for them, he also invited Theodore and Archie because one of their grandchildren, Alex Smith plays for his team. Theodore and Archie were visibly happy to see Smith and his teammates in the uniform saying they’re glad he’s proud of his culture and has a desire to share it.
“This is how we say to them every child matters. It’s very important for the young people to know that every child matters,” Theodore said. “If we’re going to make changes in this world it has to start with our children.”
As an indigenous person himself, Moore said the message of the Orange Jersey Project is important to him. When Trish Edwards, a parent of one of his players, suggested they take part he gave her his full support immediately.
“My mother and father were both status Indians and we were raised always knowing who we were. I’m an archaeologist and I work with indigenous communities all over the province including here and Williams Lake,” Moore said. “Coaching is my way of giving back. I enjoy the game but also the kids and the relationships. I run into people I coached now in their mid-40s and we still have that connection.”
Moore said he and the team plan to wear the jerseys during a home game later in the season. It will not only show their support for the project but also encourage conversation and education among spectators.
“(The Orange Jersey Project) is education making people aware of what happened in the past but also moving us towards reconciliation to put an ugly chapter of history behind us,” Moore said. “When you’re coaching youth you’re molding kids and residential schools are not a comfortable subject to talk about. You don’t want to build any guilt in the kids but I do think they should be aware of what happened. We are one people, I’m a big believer in that.”
