Crowds gather to watch Sasakamoose, long lost NHL game film

Imagine watching a hockey game from 65 years ago that you’ve never seen, yet you’re the star of the show.

That was the scene at the Roxy Theatre on Thursday as hundreds of people filed in to watch a National Hockey League (NHL) game from 1954 between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks.

It’s believed to be the only televised game in which hockey pioneer Fred Sasakamoose played in.

Ahead of the screening, the event’s main star was eager to see himself on camera for the first time.

“It’s something that I always wanted,” Sasakamoose, the first indigenous person to play in the NHL, said. “How good was I? Because they tell me I was not a bad hockey player.”

Sasakamoose, 85, doesn’t remember many specifics about that day, but talked about the whirlwind experience to be plucked from rural Saskatchewan to play for the Blackhawks in a February game at the fabled Maple Leafs Gardens

“To be there on the ice, it was a shocking moment — 18 to 20,000 people yelling,” he said. “I was so proud.”

For decades, images of Sasakamoose’s playing days had to be described by those who saw him play. A copy of the 1954 game was sent to Sasakamoose on a VHS tape sometime in the 1990s, but has since been lost. After plenty of correspondence with the NHL, his son Neil was able to get a copy of the game and was granted permission to screen the game earlier this year. Thursday’s version had a slight twist from the silent film as play-by-play announcer Clarence Iron described the action.

Iron made history earlier this year, calling the first ever NHL game broadcast in Cree.

Sasakamoose played in 11 games for the Blackhawks in the 1950s. While he’s known as a legend and a pioneer now, back then he was scared prairie boy being introduced to a whole new world.

“I remember when I went to Toronto from Regina,” he said of his three-day journey by train before going directly to the arena for practice. “I walked into that dressing room, my number was on there, on top of that number was ‘Fred Sasakamoose’. I asked (the trainer) is that was my stall and he said, ‘That’s yours.'”

It wasn’t a smooth transition to realizing his dreams. A few years earlier, a junior coach had to convince Sasakamoose to continue playing hockey after he walked away from the team following a game.

“I took off two weeks after (the start of the season). I went home,” Sasakamoose said, carrying his pack sack while living off of berries and slough water along the highway. “(My coach) said, ‘Come back, Freddie, you’ll make that team.'”

Less than five years later, Sasakamoose was playing for the Blackhawks.

Thinking back on his legacy, Sasakmoose was proud to finally share his humble hockey beginnings with the world on Thursday.

“From shame, to riches in life,” he said. “Life is what it is. That’s how I like it — let the people know who I am.”