EOS "ECM Stick (Every Child Matters)"

EOS “ECM Stick (Every Child Matters)”

In September 2022, TSN’s Bob McKenzie ran a story on residential school survivor, Eugene Arcand, of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.

His friend and Sports Excellence member, Clay DeBray, operates the Snipe & Celly Sports Excellence store owned by the Flying Dust First Nation. Clay came to us in February of 2023 with the idea for a stick that he and Eugene had conceived with the hope it could honour and embrace Indigenous Peoples’ connection to hockey and vice versa. For fear of it being viewed as cultural appropriation, we were initially quite cautious about getting involved. At the same time, we were honoured that the pair wanted our involvement on this special project, with the assured support of the Indigenous community. We at Sports Excellence then had the unique opportunity to help them bring this dream to life and expand the awareness of this campaign, while generating donations to aid in their causes.

The ECM (Every Child Matters) hockey stick is designed with six truly meaningful symbols that represent the struggles, the pain and hope of those survivors. Sports Excellence is excited to support them in this awareness campaign, and in doing so, will be donating proceeds of every hockey stick sold to select charities for this inaugural launch. Both Senior and Intermediate will see $20 donated per stick, as well as $15 for Junior sticks. These donations will be split between the Orange Shirt Society (a non-profit organization), The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (charity # 11926-0669-RR0001), and The United Way (charity # 11927 6509 RR0001). 

Eugene’s involvement in the creation of this stick was important. “[He] is a very well-respected elder both inside our community and outside of it… [and] was instrumental in making it happen,” said Clay DeBray.

Please click the link below to read more about Eugene’s story of sports and survival.

781: A story of Sports and Survival in Canadian Residential School