From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Ahneen, hello and howdy. Well, here we are into another icy January headed for a frosty February. This weather is exactly right for hockey or hibernating. For those of us who can't sleep for more than two days in a row there are hockey tournaments almost every weekend of the winter, fortunately.

Actually, the whole tournament deal is pretty much a year-round thing. Besides hockey there are all-Native soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball and even golf tournaments. You add just -for-Indians curling bonspiels and rodeos to that list and just like that, you have to watch yourself. A person could be gone every weekend of the year to such events. If your kids start calling you by your first name or the dog won't let you into your own front yard on weekends, maybe you ought to cut down on your rambling around just a little.

Where I'm from there are maybe five hockey tournaments in the winter, one or two baseball ones in the summer. Not like out here on the sports wild prairies. Maybe it's because with the buffalo gone you needed something to with all that energy you once used chasing them bison around.

It's probably got to do more with taking an initial interest, developing skills then creating competitive outlets for it.

On the B.C. coast, soccer is the big game. In Greenville, the local team is a respected social institution in the community. To be skilled enough as a player, to be upstanding enough as a person to make that team, is an accomplishment.

What is it in the nature of sport that attracts us to it? Why would an otherwise perfectly normal person watch a series of hockey games from eight a.m. to eight p.m. for two days in a row? Why would a player lace up skates for two, sometimes three games in one day?

There doesn't seem to be a lot of individual ego-feeding glory or recognition to be had. While good players are admired, this is done quietly and mostly from a distance. We still hold humility to be a desirable quality in a person while people who talk loud and brag themselves up often will end up doing that alone.

There isn't that much of a reserve versus reserve or tribe versus tribe aspect to the competing either.

So what is it that fills the stands and bleachers with intent brown faces when two teams take to the field? Maybe it's as simple as the challenge of the game, how it goes one way and then swings the other, by a tantalizing mix of skill and luck. Who knows. There are, however, three ways to involve yourself in this tournament business and each gives you a different view of how the thing goes.

Now for most of us, the typical tournament starts Friday evening and ends Sunday evening. Two days. For the ones who organize and put on the event, those 48 hours can seem mighty long. Sometimes a team cancels at the last month, keys and kids get lost, a trophy selection committee has to be found, maybe there's a concession stand to be run, then the guy who said he'd take tickets at the door doesn't show up, and the schedule that looked so good on paper has started to fall apart. You have to be in good shape to keep up that hectic pace. Maybe that's why lots of ex-players end up putting these events together.

Most of these deals go along pretty smoothly. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. If our non-sporting life was carried on as well, the core would probably read Indian self-government 26, ask the white guy to do it for us 0.

Now there really is no way to explain how a player goes through the game and competitive process. Unless you yourself have known the pleasure of knocking a puck or ball around with a stick for hours on end you will never understand the attraction there is in a game.

You get to ride the emotional rollercoaster from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat. You face a challenge yourself and you help your teammates face it also. Our hockey team last won a tournament six years ago, but we show up every weekend hopeful of a miracle that will put us at center ice n Sunday night.

At the last tournament I saw with Winski, then Simon, then Rocky and then Ernesto. We'd take turns running for coffee. While we watched the action, we'd talk, catch up on old news, joke and jump out of our seats whenever everyone else around us did.

Nothing would make me lonelier for back home than going to a tournament, expecting to see familiar brown faces and seeing only strangers instead.

Usually on Saturday night there is a tournament, dance or social, as it's called by the regulars. Some players save their best moves and flashiest moments for this part of the proceedings. Spectators get to loosen up some parts that got pretty stiff sitting on a hard seat for too long.

The organizers are the people running around collecting bottles, emptying ashtrays, setting up a food table and otherwise going unnoticed.

By Sunday evening, when the weekend championship is on the line, the attention of all three groups is centered in on THE GAME. For the players involved it's the very best of athletic times. For the spectators every bounce, pitch and offside is groaned, sighed or yelled over. For the organizers, a deadly finish can make up for whatever problems the tournament might have had along the way.

If you've never been to one of these deals and you are at all interested, go and take one in. If you go to them lots, maybe that'll be me waving at you from across the crowd. Maybe we should give credit to those who sponsor the things, the ones who organize and make sure these things go as smoothly as possible because lots of time they don't get the recognition they sure do deserve.

Well, that's it for now, hope to see you all next week.