From Nunavik to the NCAA
By Fatima Arkin - Monday, December 10, 2012 - 0 Comments
Dave Dupuis may be the first Inuit ever to play college hockey south of the border
Growing up in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Dave Dupuis had never heard of college hockey. Now, at the age of 21, he is one of the first–if not the first–Inuit to play hockey for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). His path to playing college hockey in the U.S. wasn’t easy. The rigours of academia and two concussions presented challenges. But he stuck it through and is set to graduate next year with a bachelor degree in business and management from Skidmore College, one of the most selective academic institutions in North America.
Dupuis, who was recently profiled in the New York Times, took a break from studying for finals and spoke to Maclean’s about why “ugly goals” are better than “pretty goals,” on being a role model and how to open doors for Inuit kids in the future.
Q: You’ve been playing hockey since you were 3-years-old. How did you get into the game?
A: My father played when he was younger. He was a speed skater, but he knew hockey, and my siblings and I got on skates pretty early. There was never any organized hockey [in Kuujjuaq]. We played maybe one tournament per year for all the different age groups.
Q: Speaking of your dad, I heard that he helped build an indoor ice rink in Kuujjuaq in the 1990s.
A: Yes. He was president of the regional government at the time. It was in the plans to get a hockey rink and a gymnasium built.
Q: As a result, some pretty famous NHL players, like Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Robinson, started showing up.
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We were best when it counted
By Ken MacQueen and Jonathon Gatehouse with Jason Kirby - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 9:30 AM - 2 Comments
The Vancouver Games started as a ‘crazy’ dream and ended up a wondrous spectacle that transfixed and, just maybe, transformed a nation
Photograph by Mark Ralston/ AFP/ Getty Images
There are tides and rhythms to an event that spans 17 days and includes 82 countries—an event so large it is capable of altering the emotional climate of a city, a province, a nation; indeed, the moods of many nations. Rather like the weather at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, which flip-flopped time and time again from monsoon to shorts and sunshine.
From a Canadian perspective, the run of these Games—from early stumbles to triumphant conclusion—went a bit like speed skater Christine Nesbitt’s 1,000-m race on the first Thursday at the Richmond Oval. At the start gun, 24-year-old Nesbitt later said, “Instead of skating I kind of panicked. I had a slip after two or three steps.” Sometimes when that happens it’s hard to regain control. Just 200 m into the race Nesbitt was in a dismal 15th place. At 600 m she had clawed back to ninth, and the podium seemed an impossible reach. But she prepared mentally and physically for such things. The only way forward is to draw on your training, stick to your plan and to make sure no one can accuse you of giving up. And so she raged through the last lap, throwing herself across the line to win Canada’s third gold medal by two one-hundredths of a second—still scowling at herself for not having run a perfect race.
It was later that night, after the medal presentation ceremony at BC Place, that Nesbitt finally unclenched. Yes, she allowed to a couple of Maclean’s reporters, she was feeling better now. It’s just that she thought she could do better, she said. “I don’t want to regret anything, right?” Then the smile grew bigger. “But if you don’t have the race of your life and you still win gold, it’s pretty sweet.”
Writ large, these Games followed a similar path to a “pretty sweet” conclusion. The organizational and emotional equivalent of those first 200 m were indeed the worst: struggling through the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili hours before the opening ceremonies; warring against the elements for control of Cypress Mountain; fighting premature claims the Games were hell-bent for disaster; staring down international rants that we were too hungry for medals, and domestic bleats that we weren’t hungry enough.
