Nunavik’s youth hockey program keeps players keen and in school

Inukjuak’s Peewee team celebrates on the ice after placing first-place in the NYDHP’s Peewee tournament in Inukjuak April 17. (PHOTO/ NYHDP)

As the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program nears the end of its fifth season, hockey rinks are abuzz with the program’s regional team tournaments.

“It’s really nice to end the year with these tournaments,” said Joé Juneau, an 11-year National Hockey League veteran, Olympic silver medalist and head of the hockey program. “The tournaments are about the students and we see the rink packed with parents and friends.”

In 2006, Juneau launched a grassroots hockey program in Nunavik, using the sport as a tool to show youth the importance of education, develop leadership, introduce them to a healthy lifestyle and prevent criminality throughout Nunavik.

It’s important that tournaments are held at the end of the season because it gives the program’s young players something to look forward to, Juneau said.

On April 17, Inukjuak’s 11 and 12-year-old hockey players placed first in the 2011 Peewee championships held at their home arena.

And, this coming weekend, Nunavik’s Atom teams will face off in the season’s final tournament in Kuujjuaq.

All players, aged nine to 17, attend school full-time, Juneau said.

“These players know that if they work hard in school through the year, they’ll get to participate,” he said.

In 2011, for the first time ever, each of Nunavik’s top teams also advanced to the final rounds in international tournaments held in southern Quebec.

The Peewee and Bantam teams reached the quarter finals in their respective tournaments, while the Atom team reached the semi-final only to lose in a heart-breaking shoot-out.

“That was a pretty big accomplishment for these guys,” Juneau said.

This season’s end marks a five-year run for one of the region’s most prominent youth-targeted programs.

During this time, Juneau said he’s seen more interest and participation from female players, too, who play alongside the boys at every level except Midget, for 15 to 17 year-olds. At this age level, Juneau said there’s a difference in build and skill emerges between the two groups.

However, Nunavik’s girls also have their own select hockey team for players aged 13 to 17.

“There are a lot of things that have been done in the last five years,” Juneau said. “We’ve been able to create some nice incentives for the youth involved….which is not an easy thing knowing how big this region is and how hard it is to travel from community to community.”

Makivik Corp. and other regional programs like Ungaluk, which sponsors crime-prevention projects in Nunavik, give money to the hockey program, so its future depends on their continued support.

But Juneau says he believes that Nunavimmiut can see the results of the hockey program’s work.

“Every day, we get on the ice and use hockey to encourage these kids to stay in school,” he said, “so they can become great people.”