Donated gear to help youth in the remote northern First Nation participate in hockey tournaments this winter

Thanks to an idea from a former Sault Ste. Marie man, some lucky youth in Attawapiskat, Ont. now have some hockey equipment to hit the ice with this season.

John Corboy, who works in the social services department for the city of London, Ont., spearheaded a used equipment drive that saw 11 bags packed full of hockey gear travel by rail and by air up to the northern First Nation.

The equipment was delivered to the Vezina Secondary School in Attawapiskat on Thursday.

“I know that hockey wasn’t going resolve any of the things they’ve been through,” said Corboy. “I was hoping that I could make a difference in a couple kids’ lives.”

Inspired by the resilience of the community, and wanting to make a positive impact, the Sault Ste. Marie native joined an Attawapiskat group on Facebook and asked for feedback on what was needed there.

“We need to ask people what they need if we’re going to build up a community,” Corboy said. “We need to ask the community what they want and what they need.”

Hockey gear was identified as something that was needed for the youth of Attawapiskat. Corboy then put the word out on his staff’s classified listings that he was looking for donations of hockey gear for the First Nation.

“Some really wonderful people that I worked with reached out to their hockey team and got a bunch of parents to go through their garage and get any equipment that they had that they weren’t using and throw it all together.”

“When I put it out there I wasn’t sure what kind of response I would get at all, but some really kind people that work for the city of London definitely gathered a ton of stuff together.”

Then, with the help of Anna Marie Apau, city services support specialist for the city of London, the used hockey gear - 14 bags, but packed into 11 bags for shipping purposes - traveled from London to North Bay, Ont., where the shipment was then taken by rail from Cochrane to Moosonee.

Then, on Thursday afternoon, members of the Moosonee OPP detachment grabbed the bags off of the train and arranged for the last leg of the long journey to Attawapiskat.

“When the gear got on to the railway, we were able to pick that up and load it up into one of the cargo planes that go north to Attawapiskat,” said Cnst. Matthew Roberts of the Moosonee OPP.

“We partner with the Northern Store for lots of initiatives in town, so we have a good relationship with them, and we know that they fly goods quite often between communities.”

“We just kind of did what we could to help see it through the rest of the way,” Roberts continued. “It’s tough in remote spots obviously, but we luckily have some connections.”

Apau confirmed that the hockey gear arrived at the Vezina Secondary School yesterday, and that the school was open to the youth from 6-8 p.m. that evening in order to come and look through the donations.

“We have tournaments in between communities once the winter road is in, so it’s nice, right?” Roberts said.

“More kids are going to have access to gear to be able to join these teams that get to leave Attawapiskat and play in other communities in the area, so it’s good. It makes it a more equal playing field.”

Apau told SooToday that she and Corboy would like to do similar initiatives in the future.

Meanwhile, Corboy made it clear that he did not want to be the centre of attention for this article.

“I really want the focus to be on how beautiful of a community it is, and how strong they are, and how much tragedy and trauma they’ve been through, yet they continue to have a positive spirit and move forward,” Corboy said.