Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 13/02) - Since he came North to play hockey more than 50 years ago, the sound of skates on the ice have illuminated much of Shorty Brown's life.

Over the years, thousands of kids in communities across the NWT and Nunavut have learned to play shinny, courtesy of Brown and friends. The vice-president of Bellanca Developments is winding down now, but isn't quite out of the game yet.

News/North: Tell me about the film you made last year.

Shorty Brown: The National Film Board made a film last year, and it was based out of Toronto and Ottawa, and it was regarding where shinny originated from. So they went clean across Canada, every little community, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, you name it, they went. They had nothing up in the North, so they phoned me to pick a community. We tried Holman, we thought that would be alright, then we thought Kugluktuk wouldn't be bad, because I started some hockey up there years ago, putting on hockey schools with my old-timers hockey team, stuff like that, so we picked Kugluktuk. We couldn't go to Holman because of the weather. It took us four days and we completed the film. We got up to Kugluktuk and it went perfect. We found some kids, and we made a little ice rink out on the ocean. We put up nets and the kids came out and played a little game of shinny on the sea ice, but they do that there anyways.

At night, they play all night long underneath the street lights. To get this thing rolling, we had to put a little pizzazz into it, so a fella down south came up with an idea, and he made some goalie pads. I couldn't even estimate how much they cost. They cost more than the NHL players pay. They were made strictly from beautiful, soft leather, with a great big maple leaf in the middle. It was unbelievable, and we got all the other equipment. A goalie from Montreal who was there gave us his sweater. We ended up with a complete set of hockey equipment, and we portrayed coming out of Ottawa, going down to Toronto, then up to Edmonton, then up to Yellowknife, then on First Air all the way up to Kugluktuk. The following day, we just picked a kid by random. We asked all the kids there who the best goalie was, and they pointed to this one kid, so we gave him the equipment, dressed him up and finished off our film on the sea ice, and we had a scrimmage. We had a couple of old gals in their parkas, and they got out on the ice and into the scrimmage as well. If you watch hockey in Toronto or Montreal, when they play, O Canada, the very end of the film is now playing at the end of each of those games.

N/N: How much equipment did you get up to the communities last year?

SB: I think about 400 pairs of skates. A lot of that was a gift from a guy down in the States. He drove it all up, all the way from Yellowknife.

N/N: Where did he come from?

SB: Steamboat, Colorado.

N/N: That was quite a little drive, wasn't it?

SB: Yeah, there was a list of the stuff, and it was just sheet after sheet after sheet after sheet, and it was all brand-new equipment. I think he had something like over 300 pairs of skates there. Most of that went to Kugluktuk and to Fort Liard. Then I gave some stuff up at Tulita and Sachs Harbour. Probably in excess of 400 pairs of skates, plus the equipment too. That's just in the last two years.

N/N: How long have you been doing this?

SB: Oh, I don't know. I started when I was a young guy. I came up here to play hockey in the early '50's. I had helped kids out a little, gathering up skates and giving them to the kids, and then I got out of playing senior hockey, and did a little bit more each year. I would sort of go around in Yellowknife and find out if any kids needed skates. I worked in the mining and oil exploration services for years, and I'd go into these communities and there were no rinks, no sports of any type. Then the government moved into the small communities, getting people to get into the communities, and eventually they got recreation facilities. They got an arena, but no skates. We figured it out that if you were to buy a pair of skates in Yellowknife, then have to get them up to Kugluktuk or Holman or Sachs, it would easily end up costing at least $200. It was just unbelievable. So then I figured that was a good cause, and maybe I can do something for these kids by seeing if I can get some skates for them. Being in exploration, there were always aircraft coming and going, and it wasn't that bad.

This went on and on for years, and finally, there was definitely a need for more skates in the communities. They were all getting larger, they were all getting ice rinks, but the same problem was there. The money wasn't available. So I got together with Nellie Cournoyea, Jesse Sloan, and a guy by the name of Bernie Hughes, all good people. Nellie was just gung-ho for it. I believe there was something like 40-some communities, spread over 1.3 million square miles, so we were just stymied at the area we had to cover. Finally, Nellie got a hold of all the rec directors, and Jesse was good on the numbers end, and Bernie was well-known and a hard-working guy. We sat down and had two or three meetings, and said let's go. We got a trucking company, we got a warehouse, and we sent the message out. We had every community in the North write us and tell us, boy or a girl, what age, and what they needed, and started from there, and it took off. We couldn't believe it would go like this. I was on TV, I was on the Gzowski show, the CBC across Canada half-a-dozen times, trying to get this promoted. Everybody was in support of it. Nobody turned us down, not a person.

The shipments started to roll in, truck after truck after truck. I think we had 3,000 pairs the first week, new and used skates. Every organization you could think of in Yellowknife, we had sorting and packing skates in boxes. Then the big thing was, who did I know in the airlines. Once I got it out to the big airlines, they okayed it. Anywhere they shipped, the skates could go on for free, right up to Resolute Bay. Three years ago, I sent my first shipment ever up to Grise Fiord.

Conservatively, I'd say we had 5,500 pairs that we moved. Anybody who wanted skates got them, plus any hockey equipment. We shut that project down, but there were spinoffs, and that's what I've been working on. In the last few years, I'm pretty well shutting it down now. I've got one or two more small communities, plus about a half-dozen or so individuals I'll help out, but then I'm gonna take a holiday.

N/N: What was your motivation?

SB: I don't know, I remember one time a young kid when I was playing hockey up here and I asked why he didn't go to play hockey, and he hee-ed and haw-ed for a little while, then just said flat out, "My mom and dad don't have money to buy skates."

That was sort of the thing that got me going. Then I started going to the communities, and they didn't have any skates or nothing like that. That just sort of added a little gnaw in my gut to help them out. Then it got to be a good feeling that I could help these kids out.