'I'm here for the kids, and I will never change.'

Joé Juneau grinds out a win for Nunavik youth

By JANE GEORGE

KUUJJUAQ – After 14 seasons with the National Hockey League, Joé Juneau has his sights set on what may be the biggest goal of his career.

Juneau wants Nunavik youth to thrive on the ice and in school.

Since 2006 he's worked on a one-of-a-kind youth hockey development program. Its goal: to keep Nunavik kids aged seven to 16 away from trouble and encourage them to finish school.

But, as often happens in memorable hockey games, scoring the big goal isn't easy.

"It's been a lot of effort and a lot of work. But in two years we've made big strides," Juneau says.

Juneau spends hours on the ice with the program's young players, teaching them some of the skills that made him a great hockey player. He reassures one young girl who's learning to skate that all great hockey players have to first learn how to fall down.

The way the program is supposed to work is simple: kids who attend school, behave well and do their best, may participate in supervised hockey sessions after school and earn a chance to play with Juneau when he visits their community.

If players excel, they will participate in special team training sessions, tournaments and summer camps. They'll play hockey according to Quebec Hockey Federation standards – and work towards an NHL career while they continuing their studies.

For Juneau, the program's most important goal is building team and community spirit among the region's young hockey players. He hopes tomorrow's leaders in Nunavik will someday say "Joé Juneau helped me to finish my studies."

Juneau, 40, has balanced hockey and education throughout his own career: he earned all-star honours as a university player before playing for six NHL teams.

Juneau retired after the 2003-04 season with 156 goals and 416 assists for 572 points in 828 games.

But he says his proudest moment was graduating with a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States.

To date, about 600 kids in Nunavik have participated in the youth hockey development program, supported by the region's Safer Communities program, the Kativik Regional Government, Makivik Corp., the Kuujjuamiut Society and, the Kativik School Board.

But even with money and backing from these groups, Juneau says the hockey program isn't a miracle solution for every kid in every community.

Nunavik's social problems are severe – poverty, drugs, alcohol and violence – and the resources aren't always there to cope with them.

Most participants come from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik's largest and most prosperous community, which also has a well-equipped arena called the Forum.

In communities with aging arenas, the lack of rinks with artificial ice hampers the program's success because kids my only play hockey for a few months during winter.

Juneau arrived in one community to find an unsupervised rink in poor condition and that hockey equipment, supplied new or donated in good condition, had disappeared.

Local hockey trainers hired to carry out the hockey program and maintain links with schools haven't always done their job, either.

This means daily hockey training sessions don't always take place and, when they do, sometimes players who shouldn't be there – because they've skipped school or been in trouble – still play.

Critics say the youth hockey program has succeeded mainly with good kids who would have been in school anyway.

But Juneau focuses on the successes – such as trainer Nadeau Audlaluk of Ivujivik who cleans the ice on the local rink manually with his hockey players and some local residents, using shovel scrapers and sheets of plywood.

Juneau knows things don't always work the way they should.

But that's something he hopes to change as the program moves into its third year. He suggests a pilot program that would have student physical education teachers oversee the hockey program in every community.

Meanwhile, local gossip accuses Juneau, who moved to Kuujjuaq last September with his common-law wife Elsa and their two children, of attracting too much media attention to himself.

But Juneau, who has an arena named after him in his home town of Port-Rouge, is a draw everywhere he lives- and right now, that's Kuujjuaq.

Politicians visiting the community have been eager to meet Juneau. Quebec premier Jean Charest presented Juneau with an armload of hockey jerseys last August.

And just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Juneau at the Kuujjuaq Forum, where he handed out special commemorative hockey pucks.

Despite the high-profile attention, Juneau says people have it all wrong if they think he's out to boost his own career. He points to a segment on Kuujjuaq and the youth hockey development program, which was shown earlier this year on Hockey Night in Canada.

"To have that aired on a show that reached millions of people, I feel that's part of my job. It's putting the focus on Nunavik. It's all good," he says.

Others slam Juneau's decision to have his two young daughters home-schooled in Kuujjuaq, instead of sending them to the local elementary school.

Juneau says he strongly supports Inuttitut-language education in Nunavik, but he wants Héloïse, seven, and Ophélie, six, to be educated in their mother tongue – French.

This can't be done in Kuujjuaq before Grade 4, although if Juneau lived in Iqaluit he would be able to send his girls to the Ecole des Trois Soleils.

The youth hockey program has also ruffled feathers in some communities where senior teams weren't happy about giving up their ice time to let kids play in the early hours of the evening.

Despite the criticism, which sometimes reaches his ears, Juneau says "98 per cent of the time I'm happy at the end of the day."

"How many people can say that? Each day I helped put a smile on at least one kid's face. I'm here for the kids, and I will never change."

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