Congratulations to Dr. Janice Forsyth, co-author of Beyond the Rink: Behind the Images of Residential School Hockey, which has been named one of Indigo’s Top 10 Best Regional Books of 2025 (Ontario).
Teammates, champions, Survivors
In 1951, after winning the Thunder Bay district championship, the Sioux Lookout Black Hawks hockey team from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School embarked on a whirlwind promotional tour through Ottawa and Toronto. They were accompanied by a professional photographer from the National Film Board who documented the experience. The tour was intended to demonstrate the success of the residential school system and introduce the Black Hawks to “civilizing” activities and the “benefits” of assimilating into Canadian society. For some of the boys, it was the beginning of a lifelong love of hockey; for others, it was an escape from the brutal living conditions and abuse at the residential school.
In Beyond the Rink, Alexandra Giancarlo, Janice Forsyth, and Braden Te Hiwi collaborate with three surviving team members—Kelly Bull, Chris Cromarty, and David Wesley—to share the complex legacy behind the 1951 tour photos. This book reveals the complicated role of sports in residential school histories, commemorating the team’s stellar hockey record and athletic prowess while exposing important truths about “Canada’s Game” and how it shaped ideas about the nation. By considering their past, these Survivors imagine a better way forward not just for themselves, their families, and their communities, but for Canada as a whole.
Reflecting on this achievement, the authors commented; “We’re thrilled to see Beyond the Rink reaching such a wide audience. It’s clear that many people are still searching for direction and understanding, and survivors continue to offer both. Their stories show how they are still making sense of their experiences in a changing world, and they remind us of the work ahead—especially where sport meets Indigenous sovereignty. Our responsibility is to listen, to learn, and to confront how sport has erased Indigenous histories while also recognizing the power it holds to help reclaim them.“
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