Color of Hockey: Wild game broadcast in Ojibwe spurs Minnesota high school

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles the Rock Ridge Public Schools in Minnesota, which hosted the first of two Native American Hockey Nights inspired by the Minnesota Wild’s Native American Day celebration on Nov. 28, featuring the game being broadcast entirely in Ojibwe.

The Minnesota Wild hoped broadcasting their Nov. 28 game against the Colorado Avalanche at Grand Casino Arena entirely in Ojibwe as part of its Native American Heritage Day celebration would resonate with the region’s Indigenous community.

The first-of-its-kind broadcast, a 3-2 Wild win, so inspired the Rock Ridge Public Schools Indigenous Education program that it developed and hosted the first of two Native American Hockey Nights on Tuesday, and even enlisted a member of the Wild’s Ojibwe broadcast team to do play-by-play for boys' and girls' games.

Ojibwe is an indigenous language of the Algonquian family spoken by the Anishinaabe people in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada.

The Wild’s Ojibwe broadcast was available via FanDuel Sports Network in conjunction with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Grand Casino and the Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that works to strengthen and expand Anishinaabe language revitalization.

“When we saw what the Wild did, we couldn't believe that they had done it because it was just such a special thing,” said Paul Gregersen, executive director of the Cultures, Humanities and Arts on The Iron Range, in Virginia, Minnesota. “We just knew immediately that people in our community, not just our community but Minnesota in general would really appreciate this because it’s something that people can relate to.”

Rock Ridge schools held their first Native American Hockey Night on Tuesday when Rock Ridge High School’s girls varsity Wolverines (Gwiingwa’aage) hosted Cloquet/Esko/Carlton at the Trail Motors Events Center in Virginia. The visitors won 4-3 in overtime.

Gordon “Maajiigoneyaash” Jourdain of Lac La Croix First Nation and his wife, Rosie Gonzalez, called the game in Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin). The contest was streamed with the assistance of Mesabi Community Television and broadcast live on KBFT Bois Fort Radio 89.9 FM and the station’s mobile app.

The game was also an immersion into indigenous culture with traditional dance, drumming, music and Ojibwe language shared through handouts, graphics on the events center jumbotron and live in-house interpretation.

It was a repeat play-by-play performance for Jourdain, who called the Wild broadcast in November with Ombishkebines Gonzalez and Ginoonde Buckholtz.

“I think because the Wild is such a high caliber hockey team, it gave us the platform to allow Ojibwe to reach households in America," Jourdain said. "It's huge to be able to be able to be in that type of soap box. I hope that it helps develops a strong Indigenous identity, or a strong mixed culture identity to be really proud of the composition of who you are as a Native American person, and to be able to say, ‘Hey, I can do this too.’”

Jourdain said the Ojibwe broadcasts for the Wild and Rock Ridge schools are a dream come true, because they allow him to combine his passion for hockey with his love of native language and give him the opportunity to show off his play-by-play calling skills.

“I learned that from the people that I listened to on ‘Hockey Night Canada,’ living so close to the border,” he said. “Danny Gallivan, Dave Hodge and all those people in ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ They made it so exciting. Back then, all we had was a radio. We didn't have a television, so that was the only way we listened to hockey, through a little battery-operated radio. We didn’t have electricity there.”

Meredith Two Crow, president of the Rock Ridge American Indian Parent Advisory Committee (AIPAC), said she hopes Tuesday’s game and a Native American Hockey Night on Jan. 30 featuring Rock Ridge High’s boys varsity team, coached by retired NHL defenseman Matt Niskane, against Grand Rapids will encourage youth to learn Ojibwe and to explore Indigenous culture.

“We are just so grateful that we could even get the speakers that were at the Minnesota Wild game here in our small community, in our home rink," Two Crow said. "I just think it's so phenomenal. We are in a very remote community up here on the Iron Range, and I just really hope that this is able to just open other kids' eyes. There's such a stigma with being Indigenous and I'm hoping to bridge that gap.”

The Native American Hockey Nights were made possible through a Minnesota Department of Education Native Language Revitalization Grant.