Top read stories: Nunatsiaq readers like hockey, and sharks

What do seal-eating sharks, a tiny hockey phenom and an old hotel in Ottawa all have in common? Clue: Nunavummiut love to read about such things.

The most read stories by Nunatsiaqonline readers last week, as determined by pageviews collected by Google Analytics, featured each of those topics. And a crime story in Nunavik garnered a lot of attention too, for the second week in a row.

But Nunatsiaqonline readers clicked on an article about a young, up-and-coming Nunavut hockey star more often than any other last week.

In order of popularity, here are the top five stories visited by web readers from June 15 to June 19.

The mother of a 9-year-old hockey sensation from Pond Inlet, Atiqtalaaq “Q” Uuttuvak, spoke to Nunatsiaq News in hopes of raising money to take her son to Europe this summer to play for an elite team one year above his age group.

A 26-hour standoff in the Nunavik community of Umiujaq ends on June 12 when a 17-year-old boy is shot and wounded by police. The suspect faces unspecified charges while he recovers in a Montreal hospital, and the Montreal police service is investigating the incident.

The Southway Hotel in Ottawa will shutter its doors at the end of 2015 after nearly six decades of being a “home away from home” to many Nunavummiut visiting Canada’s capital city. Nunavummiut wax nostalgic about their experiences at the southend hotel, which will soon be converted into a retirement home.

On June 15 the Nunavut Court of Appeal denies convicted rapist Lucassie Ipeelie’s appeal for a lesser sentence. The court upheld the four-year sentence imposed on Ipeelie by Justice Neil Sharkey in February 2014 for a brutal 2012 rape in Iqaluit.

In a story that focuses on seal-eating sharks—who are themselves prey for orca whales—a scientist explains how climate change is impacting biodiversity and food chain of large sea mammals in the Arctic.