Hockey Academies launched in Sioux Lookout

The Sioux Lookout arena was the setting for the official launch of the Hockey Canada Skills Academies Program on Thursday November 5. Approximately 136 students from Sioux Mountain Public School and Queen Elizabeth District High School Hockey Canada Skills Academies along with representatives from the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board and Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities gathered on the rink for the official launch.
The program is a school-based hockey program designed to build confidence, self-esteem, individual playing skills and creating opportunities in both the athletic and academic fields that reach beyond the primary and secondary school system.
Sean Monteith is the Director of Education at KPDSB, he spoke about how the program originated.
“The main reason it came about was because of an actual brainchild of one of our teachers in Kenora, Dave Dresser who is here today. He developed over a couple of years, the idea that a hockey academy must start, it was well thought through and once other schools like Sioux Mountain Public School and Queen Elizabeth District High School heard about it they wanted to be part of it, so we brought in Jumpstart to help those kids that don’t have equipment and have the need to go on and play hockey and be part of an academy. They partnered through Jumpstart and we support it from the school board and now we have over 300 little young people from grades one to 12 taking part in our hockey academies.”
He continued, “Jumpstart is the non-profit organization that is in partnership with Canadian Tire, myself as the Director and Scott Urquhart my Student Success Leader. We have been working on a partnership with Jumpstart for three years now, so what you see today is really kind of the results of three years behind the scenes hard work in partnership with them. It is because of Jumpstart that the kids who don’t have a hockey uniform, skates or stick now have them. We don’t care why kids don’t have the means or money, what we care about is that they have an opportunity like everybody else.”
The event opened with all of the students gathering on the rink on either side of the carpet leading to the podium. Master of Ceremonies, 12-year-old grade 7 SMPS student Tristan Bouchard introduced the first guest speaker SMPS Principal Michael Boos who officially welcomed everyone. He was followed by Scott Urquhart KPDSB Student Success Leader, Karl Schulz Sioux Lookout Minor Hockey Representative, Mario Coccomiglio and his wife Carole from Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities, and finally Candi Edwards Parent Council Chair at SMPS and a parent of two of the children at the school academy.
As each speaker finished they were cheered by the assembled students accompanied by loud thumping of hockey sticks on the ice.
At the closing of the ceremony grades 5-8 students from SMPS Hockey Academy gave a demonstration of their skills. For Bouchard, “It was quiet an experience, it’s really kind of nice speaking to the public and getting these opportunities especially for hockey programs. Yeah I like hockey I used to play but I don’t play anymore but I really enjoy it.”
Urquhart expressed his thoughts on the project. “We are allowing kids through sport to experience all of the things you experience by playing sport and we are bringing that back into the school environment, so the hockey is a vehicle to get lots of other things such as fitness and nutrition. It’s a student engagement piece, kids love coming to do this but it’s not just about hockey, it’s about playing the game that is transferable back to school. He added,
“I think it has been an amazing initial success and certainly from our perspective as a school board one of the things we live and breath every day is students come first and the kinds of things we do for students come first and to me this is one of those things and I’m thrilled with it and we are going to continue moving forward with it.”
Steve Poling Principal of QEDHS said, “I love it there is two components, high school hockey skills academy its such an amazing experience for the kids to be involved in a team based program and it’s really part of developing and working towards becoming healthy adults in our community. There is also another component, as a number of students teach with the elementary students, so it’s providing them in helping young people by learning how to teach and so there is an opportunity to use these skills in a different way to help others and develop new approaches to build a capacity for a community it’s huge.”
Boos concurred, “It’s absolutely fantastic. This event today is the official launch of our hockey academy at Sioux Mountain Public School and you can see from the smiles on the kids’ faces and the energy and the excitement here that this is an absolutely fabulous thing for our school and for our community. I think we are the only elementary school in our region to offer a hockey academy for kids from grade one to grade eight so we will definitely have a large number of students in the program.” He concluded, “I just think that it’s absolutely fantastic, we know that hockey as you can see by the numbers today is of great interest to the kids. We understand that hockey is something that will engage kids in schools and we will see that program will improve results on an academic level in our schools.”
Tabatha Jourdain’s son Jordan Carpenter is in grade eight at SMPS. “I think it‘s a good opportunity for all students to work as a team. It’s good that they brought it to Sioux Lookout, it’s a wonderful idea having it here because of the cost to a travel academy is really expensive and it’s great to have it here locally. It keeps the kids out of trouble; it keeps them focused on healthier activities ” she said.