YORKTON / SPORTS THIS WEEK - Not all sports books are exactly easy to read.
However, there are some sports books which are worthy of reading – sometimes for reasons which transcend sport.
Beyond the Rink by authors Alexandra Giancarlo, Janice Forsyth, and Braden Te Hiwi is one such book.
Beyond the Rink is at first blush a very a compelling story of a residential school hockey team from northern Ontario touring Ottawa and Toronto in the 1950s. In that alone the book is an important read as we in Canada come to terms his the long-lasting and generally debilitating effects of residential schools.
But there is more here.
Beyond the Rink gives its readers a look behind the curtain if you will.
The tour the team took was largely theatrics, a way to show how wonderful the schools were.
“The tour was intended to demonstrate the success of the residential school system and introduce the Black Hawks to “civilizing” activities and the “benefits” of assimilating into Canadian society,” details the publisher website at uofmpress.ca.
We, of course, recognize the falsehood all too well today.
However, hockey too seemed to be able to rise above the stark reality of the schools, providing a level of relief if you will to the players – at least for 60 minutes at a time.
“For some of the boys, it was the beginning of a lifelong love of hockey; for others, it was an escape from the brutal living conditions and abuse at the residential school,” notes the publisher page.
It is ultimately a complicated dichotomy that leaves readers perhaps better understanding why this nation is still in the midst of truth and reconciliation as it comes to terms with residential schools.
It is a story that perhaps could have been written years ago, but Giancarlo said it is timely today in the sense “the general public has a better understanding (regarding residential schools),” and thus a perhaps “a bit more receptive” to a book such as Beyond the Rink.
It is also a book that took time, with work on it taking some 20 years to pull together “to get the story to a levl where it’s a reconciliation piece . . . that is so important.”
What sets this book above what one might expect is that the team tour was accompanied by a professional photographer from the National Film Board who documented the experience. The photos provide an intriguing element to the book – a very real glimpse into the team and the tour.
The authors also collaborated with three surviving team members—Kelly Bull, Chris Cromarty, and David Wesley—to share a very personal story behind the 1951 tour photos. Again the personal truths permeate the story adding to its weight as more than a sport book.
The players each have their own vision of what hockey meant back then.
For example Giancarlo said Bull said the game “was a way that he could, in his words, survive.”
By contrast Giancarlo said Cromarty related that hockey was a way “to really understand that there was a world beyond residential schools.”
While the stories were not easy emotionally for the authors to gather, said Giancarlo, the book ultimately resonated with the survivors, who saw it as “validating.”
Now the book is on shelves, Giancarlo said she hopes it finds a broad audience.
“I think it is an important story. . . something people can relate too, she said.
It is certainly a book hockey historians should seek out, but one worthy of a broader audience too. It is a story relevant in that it sheds an interesting light on one of this country’s darker histories.
