Ojibwe-language broadcast coming to Friday's Minnesota Wild game
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For the first time, there will be a broadcast of a Minnesota Wild hockey game entirely in Ojibwe.
The Friday, Nov. 28, home game against the Colorado Avalanche coincides with Native American Heritage Day, and the livestream is another step toward revitalizing Indigenous languages in the state.
“This milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to celebrating the Indigenous communities who have long been part of Minnesota’s cultural fabric,” Matt Majka, Chief Executive Officer of the Minnesota Wild, said in a press release. “We’re proud to help expand access to the game we all love and to support the preservation and vitality of the Ojibwe language for generations to come.”
Chato Ombishkebines Gonzalez, a member of the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Institute, joined Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition to talk about preparing for the professional hockey broadcast and what it means to be part of the experience.
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“I've been working with our elders to revitalize our language for about 20 years now, and it's exciting to see Ojibwe moving into different domains,” he said.
The game’s other announcers are Gordon Maajiigoneyaash Jourdain and James Ginoonde Buckholtz. Puck drop against the Avalanche is at 2:30 p.m. at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul.
Wild fans can stream the Ojibwe-language broadcast of Friday's game on the FanDuel Sports Network app or website. A subscription is required but there is a 7-day free trial option.
Listen to the conversation by clicking the player button. The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
What does this upcoming broadcast in your native language mean to you?
It means a lot to me. I’ve been working with our elders to revitalize the language for about 20 years now, and it’s exciting to see Ojibwe moving into different domains. This isn’t really a new domain, since especially in Canada, where there are a lot of Ojibwe people as well, hockey is very popular. So coming up with the words and stuff, we really don’t have to do that, because the guy that we’re working with, Gordon Maajiigoneyaash Jourdain — he played hockey growing up, and so he already has all these words, so it’s just kind of teaching it to us so that we know the special jargon that goes along with the hockey game.
Hockey has deep Native roots. Can you talk about that a little bit?
So I grew up in Hayward, Wis., off the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, and a lot of my friends and I all played hockey growing up. We played for the community team. We played on our local lakes. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who play hockey, so it’s pretty big. I work at the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Institute, and a lot of our students play hockey, so it’s pretty exciting for us. But you know, when you think about the Canadian side of things as well, they have major tournaments and major hockey games that are all Native-based. They’re all around the First Nations peoples of Canada. So it’s kind of hard to really understand the breadth of Native peoples playing hockey.
Many elders who went to residential schools didn’t pass the language on because they were taught it was a language that didn’t matter. How is that changing?
I think as society changes and becomes more accepting of people who are different than them, especially us as Ojibwe people — it’s really difficult growing up in your own homeland and not feeling like you belong. And so, I think this gives us an opportunity to start passing this on to our children. If we start somewhere, that’s better than nothing, right?
If you look at the third guy who is [announcing] with us, his name’s James Ginoonde Buckholtz, he’s still in high school, a 17-year-old student. He went through the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language School. Now he’s at the Hayward school. He’s an athlete, but he’s so gung ho on learning Ojibwe. And as soon as he was asked about announcing the game in Ojibwe, he jumped at the opportunity. He’s really good, learning it really fast, and he’s not even a hockey player. And he’s like, “If I knew this was how fun hockey was, I would have played my whole life.”
It means a lot because it’s been taken away from us, it has been robbed from us, right? It’s not just the point that we’re losing it, almost like it’s our fault that we lost it, right? This has been beaten out of us and oppressed on a very deep level. Really, it means a lot to us as Ojibwe people.
How are you preparing for the game?
During the last home game, we went up into the booth and just kind of announced it to ourselves. Ginoonde and Maajiigoneyaash actually had one extra time before me. And then the last couple days, Maajiigoneyaash and I have been putting together word lists. Last night, we stopped. We worked for about 10 hours straight, and we documented 255 hockey words.
