Indian horse

Julia Arvelo

04/11/2015

Indian Horse questions part 4: chapter 25 to 36

1. For aboriginal communities, organized hockey brings a lot of happiness (positive outcomes) but also some bitterness (negative outcomes). List them separately, point-form

Positive outcomes:  

• Whether the destination of their games was, they were always welcomed into the community, where the families took good care of the team.
• Even though it was really cold outside, the community wouldn’t miss a game, because they loved it, brought joy
• Having devoted fans in every community they went, Moose’s players (Saul and his teammates) would play their hearts for them
• Hockey brought all the Moose’s players together in a way that nothing else could, they were stronger together
• Organized hockey allowed players from other teams to respect each other (even if they had a fight during the game, they would shake hands afterwards.)
• The teams were their communities pride and joy
• The rink was the place where their dreams (the team) went to life (page 113)
• They never gave a thought about being Indian or different. They only thought about the game and the brotherhood that bounded them together and the little joys it could bring (traveling, winning...)
• They were given the possibility to play in town
• Scouts watched them play in order to recruit them, at one point a Scout for the Leafs wanted to recruit Saul

                Negative outcomes  

• Moose’s practices weren’t the same when they knew they were going to play against the Kapuskasing Chiefs (white team) –because they were nervous and scared to lose
• Moose’s team felt intimidated because of the concrete arenas and carpeted dressing rooms of their opposing team
• In town, they experienced racism:

• An older man made fun of their names
• People in the crowd laughed at Saul “Thirteen must be the mascot!” p.124
• Saul and his team were an unwelcome entity in their midst.
• White people attacked them, pissed on them
•  A lot of players on the opposite team would not even take off their gloves to shake The Mooses’s hands after a game and some of them didn’t even get up from the bench.

1. Examine the following quotations carefully, and explain them in one or two sentences

“The Moose went from jubilant boys to hard, taciturn men in no time at all” (131) Why? Because the team was treated in a cold and inhospitable way when they played in town (they get throw garbage, yelled, and pissed). The team created a “shell” because of the multiple harsh treatments they had to go through during games.

“We crossed a line. Their line. They figured they got the right to make us pay for that” (136) . What line? The line is something that Aboriginals are beating the Whites: hockey , a game they were used to win before they started to play against the Moose

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