Ineligible player cost Wiikwemkoong youth hockey squad a chance at league championship

By Sam Laskaris

WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY – Players, parents and officials representing a house league hockey team are upset they missed out on the opportunity to possibly win a league championship.

What’s even more infuriating is it wasn’t an on-ice performance but a boardroom decision that cost the boys’ under-15 squad the chance of further glory.

The Wikwemikong Hawks club had pulled off a pair of playoff upsets in its Manitoulin Minor Hockey circuit, earning the right to compete in its league final on Mar. 31.

But a few days before the championship match, team officials were notified by the Northern Ontario Hockey Association (NOHA) all of their results from this season, including their post-season victories, would be deemed as losses since they had used an ineligible player.

The Hawks were forced to forfeit all of their contests because their roster included an unvaccinated player, whose paperwork had not been registered properly with the NOHA.

The association, which had an online registration, did allow unvaccinated players to compete during the 2021-22 campaign, if they had a medical or religious exemption.

Alanna Trudeau, the president of Wiikwemkoong Minor Hockey, said the mother of the Hawks’ player in question did sign him up in February and checked a box in the registration process, citing a medical exemption since they are members of the Rain Dance Lodge, an Anishinabek belief system.

Trudeau added the player’s mother did not, as requested, send in paperwork to the NOHA in support of the medical exemption.

“To me, this was a minor technicality that could have been taken care of,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau also said she asked the player’s mother why the supporting paperwork was not sent.

“She said it gave her really high anxiety (thinking about the medical exemption),” Trudeau said.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, squads in the Manitoulin league played a shortened season this year.

The Hawks only had six regular season matches and they failed to win any of them, finishing in the basement of their five-club league.

In the playoffs; however, the club kicked things off by defeating the fourth-place squad, earning the right to advance to the league semi-finals.

The Hawks then pulled off an upset beating the top-ranked team to advance to their championship final.

Trudeau is wondering why nobody had questioned the vaccination status, but more importantly, if proper paperwork had been completed of the Hawks’ player in question earlier.

It is not clear who brought the issue to the attention of NOHA officials.

“The bigger issue is how did they know about this?” Trudeau said. “And why did it only become important when we [advanced to the final?]”

NOHA executive director Jason Marchand told the Anishinabek News he could not comment on the issue. An NOHA hearing was held during the last week of March and it was determined the decision to have all of the Hawks’ matches this season be deemed as forfeits was upheld.

Marchand added he couldn’t comment as Wiikwemkoong officials could technically still appeal their case to a higher hockey body, the Ontario Hockey Federation.

“We’re trying to move on,” Trudeau said. “But there is an underlying sense of racism here… We all know there is racism in hockey. I’m hoping our kids didn’t see it here.”