Canadian Blind Hockey hopes that the stories of these two Indigenous Blind Hockey players’ lived experiences will encourage more Indigenous youth who are blind or partially sighted to try the Para sport of Blind Hockey.
June is National Indigenous History Month
Blind Hockey Athletes Meghan Mahon and Cassandra Ruttle Share Their Heritage and Drive Impact through Sport.
Meghan Mahon is a Paralympic athlete known across Canada’s Goalball world as a member of the national team and is an incredible player in the Blind Hockey community. The Ruttle’s are also a known family across the Blind Hockey community, with the youngest member, Cassandra rising to a promising career in sport just like her mentor Meghan. Not only allies in sport, they share profound respect and interest for their indigenous background and history. Meghan is Métis, and Cassandra is First Nations.
Meghan: Growing up, I wasn’t as openly connected to my Métis culture. We knew that we were Métis, but also living in northern Ontario, we just kind of embraced a lot of Indigenous ways of living naturally, like living on and with the land. As I moved out west, I grew more curious about my own culture and I was making connections with other women and youth in sport. As my mentor relationship grew with Cassandra across Goalball and Blind Hockey, when we discovered she is also Indigenous, it was one of those realizations where we realized this is even more powerful than any of us expected. We have this age gap, and we have this great mentee/mentor relationship, we take part in the same sports and now there’s this cultural piece. It’s so much more than being in sport, it’s a powerful representation that no matter how many barriers or stereotypes are put on a person, you’re able to carry it and let it empower you! It’s pretty cool to look at each other and have that understanding that we’re doing it for our own generations.
The opportunities for sport organizations and teams to support indigenous athletes begin at the very start. Representation needs to be embraced at all stages from grassroots to professional and it’s about bridging the gap between sport and culture.
Organizations need to recognize what it means for people are who are living at the intersect of Indigenous culture who are blind or partially sighted. The occurrences of sight loss in Indigenous culture are higher due to health, barriers or access to healthcare so there’s an entire population who’s not getting to enjoy the game that we all enjoy. So, how can we bring this sport into people’s communities and break down that barrier of access to having to travel to a major city to take part, and how can we integrate it into programs that already exist?
I’m proud to be a champion, and it’s going to be continued work and advocacy through my work and in the sports I play. Canadian Blind Hockey is celebrating 10 years of the Summer Development Camp and I was at the very first one! As soon as I attended, I was hooked. I had been playing hockey in the sighted world my entire life.
Now it’s really something to see all the youth who are attending these tournaments. I feel like a proud hockey parent without being a hockey parent. Ha!
I’m grateful I can participate in Blind Hockey while pursuing my career and playing on Canada’s Women’s Goalball Team. I feel like Blind Hockey is a community that I feel like I can leave for however long, and come back and feel like it hasn’t been a day that’s gone by.
As for my future as an Indigenous Blind Hockey player, I’d like to see growth across geographical representation. It’s about stepping outside of those hub cities that have programs and bringing them to rural areas encouraging diverse participation.
What can sports organizations do as action toward reconciliation?
I think it comes down to, really, two key pieces. The first one is internal learning. It’s learning about and asking as a sport organization, are we truly creating a culturally informed and safe environment?
People need to feel that this is a space that they are welcome. Sport historically can also be something that is a discriminatory place. And people can very much steer away from it for those factors. So learn about how to create that safe space and prove that it is a safe space.
The second piece is geographical depth. How are we working alongside communities, and not saying “ hey here’s our program in a box, and this is going to work for you.” But how are we working alongside communities to create something that really works for that area and to co-create or support what they already have in place? To just be a resource for them to be able to build what they have to offer to their communities, and not have to own it. Put some of your humility at the forefront and know you don’t need to be experts in it all, in this case Indigenous communities. What does your accessible sport look like for your group, your community, your organization, and the people that you serve in these other communities?
Cassandra Ruttle:
I have my first international trip with Goalball this week, so it’s going to be amazing. I started when I was, like, really young, around 6, and then I came back around when I was 13, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I first started Blind Hockey 4 years ago, I love the National Tournament and I’m part of the Calgary Seeing Ice Dogs, doing my best to make it out weekly!
My dad is a sixties scoop survivor. This was the large-scale removal or “scooping” of Indigenous children from their homes, communities and families of birth through the 1960s, and their subsequent adoption into predominantly non-Indigenous, middle-class families across the United States and Canada. This experience left many adoptees with a lost sense of cultural identity.
So I didn’t really grow up learning our culture, because he never really knew his culture, so over the past, like, 2 or 3 years, we’ve kind of been getting more into learning about the Indigenous culture and everything else around it, Indigenous events, Pow Wows, smudging ceremonies etc. During these significant dates like National History Month and National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 we do our best to reflect and honour tradition.
My relationship with Meghan as my mentor and friend is really important. We are both Indigenous, and we can show other Indigenous youth with disabilities that it is possible to participate in non- Indigenous sport, that it’s an available option. The issue is, it’s not always accessible. That’s what we’re working to change.
I’m only 17, but I’m constantly working at getting better at my current Blind Hockey skills and learning more. I’m enjoying watching the younger generation come up and hopefully, we see more Indigenous youth come out and give it a try because Blind Hockey is a really great community. I would like to see us go to them; they can’t always find us in major cities, so perhaps to support indigenous athletes, we bring a Try-it session closer to their community, to the reserves. Sometimes they’ve never even thought of the experience to play a sport like Blind Hockey, so let’s give them the chance.
Canadian Blind Hockey aims to recruit more Indigenous players as we outreach across the nation. We hope that Meghan and Cassandra’s stories can inspire others to participate and take action. Canadianblindhockey.com
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