Arctic coach inducted to the hall of fame

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At first glance, Addie Arey doesn't seem like a prime candidate for the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame.

You won't see any animated encouragement, yells and screams from the sidelines when he's coaching. Arey's participated in eight Arctic Winter Games, as well as the Northern Games, the World Eskimo Olympics, the North American Indigenous Games and the Commonwealth Games.

And he doesn't know how many medals he has. He's never counted them, he said. Arey doesn't say much. In fact, you're lucky if you get a quick nod as you pass by.

But if you pry information from the Yukon's foremost Arctic Sports athlete and coach, you soon realize he deserved the induction this fall to the hall of fame.

"The self-discipline the athletes learn is important enough to keep the Games going," he said. "Somebody had to keep them going."

Arey, an Alaskan Eskimo, was born in 1949 at Whitefish Station in northern Yukon, near Herschel Island. He learned Arctic Sports in Aklavik and Inuvik before coming to the Yukon in 1978. Nobody really taught him how to do the one-foot high kick, the Alaskan high kick, the ear pull and the arm pull, he said.

If you wanted to learn, you taught yourself by watching others do the sports, he said.

"All you had to do was watch. Nobody really taught you. If you were interested, you could watch and learn."

He uses the same philosophy in coaching young athletes.

"I don't tell the kids they have to do it. I say, 'If you want to, I'll show you. If not, don't waste my time'."

When Arey first came to the Yukon, a group of people were working to get Arctic sports into the Arctic Winter Games. He became the coach of that team and competed as an athlete as well.

Arey stopped competing in 1990 but has racked up 40 medals over the eight Arctic Winter Games he's participated in. He's also won medals at the Northern games in Inuvik, McPherson and Aklavik, as well at the World Eskimo Olympics and the 1990 North American Indigenous Games in Edmonton.

He said the rules of the games haven't really changed much since he was a child. And he'd like it to stay that way.

"They're trying to define the rules more clearly because there are a lot more contingences," he said. "I don't see anything wrong with defining it more clearly. They have to be adjusted but when they try to change the rules, there's no way I want that."

For instance, there are several different ways of doing the one-hand reach, he explains. Some athletes balance on their knuckles while others are on their fingertips and others rest the palms of their hand on the floor.

With all the different ways of doing it, it could be a real technical nightmare," he said. "We try to define it in an overall way. We define everything before each event starts."

Beating the competition, however, isn't really the purpose of the games, he said. In fact, he can often be seen helping athletes from Alaska or the NWT at Arctic Winter Games competitions.

"It's always been that way. It's not really a team sport. It's an individual thing - a person against himself.

"If I go and help somebody to kick that extra little bit, to see the expression on their face is worth it. You can't put it in dollar form. I tell them right off the bat, 'If you can't win a medal or a competition, that's OK. Just go out and do your best. You know what your record is. If you beat it, that's good enough for me."

Arey took a group of Arctic sports athletes to the Commonwealth Games in Victoria this summer. The group stayed at the cultural village and demonstrated their sports in front of thousands of spectators at the Games.

But he didn't think much of all the type and hoopla surrounding the event.

"It's too commercial," said Arey.

The Arctic sports coach was inducted to the Yukon Sports Hall of Fame Oct. 21.