The Significance of Sports in Canadian Residential Schools

This essay examines the crucial role of sports in Canadian residential schools, focusing on their impact on students' emotional and mental well-being. Using Richard Wagamese's novel, 'Indian Horse,' as a primary source, the essay highlights how sports, particularly hockey, served as a coping mechanism for the protagonist and other students facing traumatic experiences such as abuse, dehumanization, and cultural loss. The essay delves into the historical context of residential schools, emphasizing the schools' role in assimilation and the harsh realities faced by Indigenous children. Supporting evidence from secondary sources underscores the development of confidence, resilience, leadership, and teamwork opportunities provided by sports. The essay concludes that sports were an essential element for identity formation and survival within the oppressive environment of residential schools, offering a pathway to healing and self-esteem. Furthermore, the essay underscores the importance of sports in the lives of the students and how it helps in focusing on their career goals and targets.

STUDENT NAME 1
Student Name
Professor Name
Subject Code
Date
Topic – The role of sports in residential schools
Thesis - The essay argues with the fact that whether sports plays a essential role in the
residential schools and for the students in those school. The essay highlights how sports
initiates in helping the students in the residential schools to cope up with the emotional and
mental turmoil caused from the tragic experiences. The essay shed light on the Indian novel.
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese.
Supporting evidence from Indian Horse - The novel, Indian Horse centres around a first
nations boy, the Indian Horse who survived the system of Indian residential school and grew
to be one of the leading star hockey player of the decade. The novel illustrates the journey of
Saul towards self awareness and self acceptance. The novel stated how the author in his
initial phase was removed from his family and the culture and was put to the residential
school which was at one of the darkest corner in the country of Canada (Wagamese ;76). The
novel furthermore sheds light on the horrifying and the traumatic experiences faced by the
author while attending the residential schools. These include some of the tragic experiences
like abuse, rape, dehumanization and some of the other horrific incidents. In the context of
the role of sports, the author in his autobiography illustrated how his life changes after being

STUDENT NAME 2
in the residential school. The school had been a double sided sword for Saul and apart from
all other traumatic experiences in the school he got to find his love and passion for sport,
hockey (Griffith ;30). The tremendous horrifying experiences thus faced by the author
induced him to concentrate more on the hockey and the author made the sport his outlet and
the source to connect to in his life. The novel furthermore highlights how the author
illustrated his feelings and passion for sport which helped him to keep his spirit alive for the
sport. Factors such as the skin colour, fear of being lonely and other relevant factors did not
matter to him when he was dedicating his time for sports. In spite of the tremendous inhuman
experiences faced by him, the author continued to focus his time to hockey for bettering
himself at the sport. The author in his biography stated how he spends his hours in the
consumption of the training and the participation for being good enough. The role of the
sports in the residential school has been one of the essential factors for the author in the novel
to create his own identity, to develop his own self esteem that helped him to pass out of the
residential school (Wagamese ;148). The story depicted in the novel illustrated the view of
the reader forcing the reader towards the experience of the atrocities through the eyes of the
protagonist. Often in the tendency of being faced with family issues, negligence, abuse and
blatant racism, the author in the film depicted how he himself found the repressing of the
harsh reality and opts towards the immense of himself in the great world of sport
(Robinson ;38). His love for hockey increased immensely as was the lifeline to survive in the
school. Highlighted in the novel, the author explained his fondness for hockey as the
opportunity of the author increases in his life together with the hostility. The survival at the
residential school has been one of the biggest nightmare to the author which he did and it was
one of the heaviest event in his life until he found the strength to tell and remember his story
on how hockey and his passion for sport helped him to heal and sustain in the inhuman
environment.

STUDENT NAME 3
The novel basically serves two of the most important purposes. These includes the powerful
reminder of the story on the reclamation of a necessary component or ingredient for healing
and secondly the novel, Indian Horse initiated the answering to the most important questions
on the brutal statistics and headline on the additions, the mental health and the rate of suicide
epidemics in the novel. The topic of the residential schooling is basically highly resonant in
the country of Canada and among the indigenous population (Ross ;271). The author of the
novel highlights how the catholic priests and the nuns in charge of the residential schooling
run used to run the school like prison camp. The only schooling that was visible is the means
of the forcible subjugations of the identity of the indigenous one (Wagamese ;154). The
author recalled how most of the students in the residential schooling break under the
systematic attempts towards the destruction and replacement of the identity to the ways of
death. One of the most essential factors highlighted in the film that the author recalled was
the form of the punishment which was a tiny isolation cell basically known as the Iron Nun
(Te Hiwi ;1953). The author thus concluded on the role and the importance of the sports on
the residential school and the impact of the sports in the lives of the pupil in the school.
Thus it can be concluded that the novel, Indian Horse finds the granite solidity in
regards to the author’s prose polished towards the lustrous sheen and the brief of the chapters
for the readers to understand the condition and the daily life in the residential school. His
novel illustrated the master of empathy shedding light on the delineating experiences of the
passing time, the learned lessons and the educed tragedies inside the residential schooling.
The author in his novel furthermore denoted the experiences of racism and discrimination
even in case of the sports and the passion he showed for hockey which as the only physical
activity that kept him and his spirit alive throughout the years (Wagamese ;132). The novel
highlights how sports initiates in helping the students in the residential schools to cope up
with the emotional and mental turmoil caused from the tragic experiences. The author in his

STUDENT NAME 4
biography stated how he spends his hours in the consumption of the training and the
participation for being good enough. The role of the sports in the residential school has been
one of the essential factors for the author in the novel to create his own identity, to develop
his own self esteem that helped him to pass out of the residential school.
Supporting evidence from another secondary source
Sports generally play a very essential role in the residential school for initiating effective
support and nurturing of the individual (de Grace et al.; 50). It generally tends to develop the
confidence among the pupil and the resilience among the students of the residential school
with the help of the technical, physical and the mental stimulus. Sports in the residential
school furthermore provide leadership and teamwork opportunities.
The Indian residential schools belong to one of the darkest past in the history of
Canada. According to the research study by Te Hiwi, Braden and Janice Forsyth ;(98) the
residential schools were generally some of the large organization situated near the non
natives of the cities and the towns in the consideration that the children in the residential
schools from some of the distant communities have little or approximately no choice but to
reside in the school. These residential schools were some of the basic tools of the assimilation
and the institutions for the breakage of the aboriginal spirit. According to the (Te Hiwi ;1953)
some of the physical practises that linked to the residential schooling constituted some of the
new and the improved form of the disciplinary society in the Canada at the late nineteenth
century. One of the most common physical activities that were encouraged in the time was
hockey for the boys. The essay highlights how sports initiates in helping the author of the
novel in the residential schools day to cope up with the emotional and mental turmoil caused
from the tragic experiences there and in his personal life. These physical activities was like a
fresh air to the boys in the residential school. Thus it can be concluded from these secondary

STUDENT NAME 5
resources that hockey as the most basic physical activity served as the moments of
amusement and pride for the students in residential schools and furthermore helps them in
focusing on their career goals and targets.

STUDENT NAME 6
References
de Grace, Laurie A., et al. "Exploring the role of sport in the development of substance
addiction." Psychology of Sport and Exercise 28 (2017): 46-57.
Griffith, Jane. "Off to School: Filmic False Equivalence and Indian Residential School
Scholarship." Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 30.1
(2018).
Robinson, Jack. "Re-Storying the Colonial Landscape: Richard Wagamese’s Indian
Horse." Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne 38.2 (2013).
Ross, J. Andrew. "Specifying the Canadian: Four Books on Hockey." Journal of Canadian
Studies 49.3 (2015): 268-281.
Te Hiwi, Braden Paora. "Physical Culture as Citizenship Education at Pelican Lake Indian
Residential School, 1926-1970." (2015).
Te Hiwi, Braden, and Janice Forsyth. "“A Rink at this School is Almost as Essential as a
Classroom”: Hockey and Discipline at Pelican Lake Indian Residential School, 1945–
1951." Canadian Journal of History 52.1 (2017): 80-108.
Wagamese, Richard. Indian Horse: A Novel. Milkweed Editions, 2018.