Bombers to give indigenous youth a sporting chance

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This article was published 12/05/2017 (3038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will have some new fans in the stands this year.

Chartered flights will bring groups of youths and their chaperones from 12 isolated First Nations communities to every Bomber home game this season.

“For each of the Bombers 10 home games, we bought a block of 40 tickets and we’re going to bring down children, one community at a time, to see the Bombers play,” said Mike Pyle, CEO of Exchange Income Corp., Perimeter Aviation’s parent company.

“They going to get treated like rock stars when they come down here and get the full game-day experience.”

Already, northern First Nations are vying to land the annual grudge match with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, known as the Banjo Bowl.

“I asked why is that, and the chiefs said, ‘Because we really hate the Roughriders here,’” Pyle joked.

Perimeter Aviation and its parent company hosted Winnipeg Blue Bombers executives and northern leaders at an announcement for the $500,000 initiative at one of their Winnipeg aircraft hangars Friday.

“The Blue Bombers are Manitoba’s team, and this really extends us to northern Manitoba,” Blue Bombers CEO Wade Miller said.

“Right from the door of the plane, they’ll be taken to the stadium, have a nice hat, be fed well at our concessions and come down on the field afterwards and meet some of our players.”

The experience is all fun and games, but the corporate initiative has a serious side: to give northern children struggling with a suicide crisis a chance to see life beyond the daily struggle.

Suicide and self-inflicted injuries have long been recognized as a leading cause of death among First Nations, Métis and Inuit people. Waves of youth suicides and attempted suicides, even reports of suicide pacts, from Attawapiskat on James Bay to Pimicikamak at Manitoba’s Cross Lake, in recent years has served to shine a spotlight on Canada’s northern mental-health crisis and the lack of services.

“It can be pretty difficult and dark in the community sometimes, and if we can, we want to open up the window a little bit and shine in a light and get people excited about something and reward the students,” Pyle said.

Most kids have never set foot out of their communities.

“The cost of flying down is expensive. It’s hundreds of dollars a ticket and families can’t afford that, so generally if they come down it’s a medical emergency and that’s not a positive reason to come out,” Pyle said.

Off-season, the links will carry on.

Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols and his fellow players will make trips to each community as part of the team’s after-school programs. Earlier this year, Bombers players made similar trips to Thompson and Wabowden.

The communities that will take part this year are St. Theresa Point, Garden Hill, Red Sucker Lake, Wasagamack, Oxford House, God’s Lake Narrows, God’s River, Shamattawa, Norway House, Cross Lake, Sandy Lake, Lac Brochet, Tadoule Lake and Brochet.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see, to go and be part of these sports. It’s something special for the communities, for the mothers and fathers, when they look at their children, hoping they’ll be one of children who gets to go see a live Blue Bombers game,” said Denesuline Northlands Chief Joe Antsanen from Brochet, about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg on Reindeer Lake.

Community leaders will chose youth who are struggling the most to make the trips south.

Bunibonibee First Nation Chief Timothy Muskego said his community in Oxford House has endured five suicides since the new year. He called the Bombers games an incentive for kids.

“Most of our youth has never had a opportunity like this. I’m sure they see the games on TV, but the first-hand experience? Meeting the players will be a big thing for them,” Muskego said.

Raymond Flett, a former school principal and a current band councillor at St. Theresa Point, said the announcement dovetails with something he and three of his friends did this year: the four each bought two Bombers season tickets with the idea of bringing students to games at their own expense. His wife brought seven special-education students down for a trip to Winnipeg museums a few months ago and tried McDonald’s food for the first time.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca