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Looks like the rockers brought in a ringer.
When the puck drops on the 14th annual JUNO Cup Friday, the team of grizzled rockers captained by Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy will be looking to a rising star on the Canadian music scene, who also happens to have some serious stick skills in his back pocket.
Adrian Sutherland, front man for breakthrough indigenous rockers Midnight Shine, spent three days driving to the Capital from the remote northern community of Attawapiskat, which most Canadians associate with a suicide crisis that became emblematic of the issues facing First Nations communities.
“It’s certainly been an interesting journey, and it hasn’t been an easy one,” said Sutherland. “Growing up in a remote environment is tough. You really are in survival mode. A lot of the remote bands in Canada’s Far North are still living off the land, and in order to do that you have to have a very special skill set when you’re out in the elements in any time of year.”
For Sutherland, that special skill set – from melting snow for drinking water to snaring rabbits each morning before school, to chopping firewood to heat the house or enduring days of darkness each time the generators would go out – manifested itself in his music, and also translated to his other passion: hockey.
On Thursday, Sutherland got to combine the best of both worlds when he took to the TD Place Arena practice ice with his fellow rockers in a star-studded pickup team that includes captain Jim Cuddy, Barney Bentall, Gord Bamford and local rockers Jim Bryson, Amanda Rhéaume, Kathleen Edwards, Menno Versteeg of Hollerado, and Matt Sobb and Steve Marriner of Monkeyjunk. They’ll square off against a team of NHL legends – including Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Phillips, Gary Roberts, Brendan Bell, Luke Richardson and Paul Coffey – for Friday’s charity game supporting the music education program MusiCounts.
RedBlacks star quarterback Henry Burris will coach the NHLers; legendary coach Brian Kilrea will take up his old perch as the rockers’ bench boss.
“I can’t stop smiling about it obviously,” said a beaming Sutherland. (It helps that Sutherland grew up a fan of the Ottawa Senators, and now finds himself facing off against some of the franchise’s biggest names.)
“Hockey has been a passion of mine for many, many years, but I haven’t played in a while and I’m kinda out of shape, and we’re up against some really talented ex-NHLers. So we’re coming here to lose pretty bad I suspect. But it’ll be fun.”
Sutherland spent two seasons patrolling the blue line for a senior AA hockey team when he lived in Alberta, but he acknowledged there’s a bit of rust that needs shaking.
“For me it’s just exciting to be a part of something and to raise money for a good cause, for something positive for others to benefit from,” he said. “And to have fun. I’m not there to prove anything. It’s about having fun. It’s hockey right? Canada’s favourite pastime.
“I grew up playing pond hockey on the frozen lakes, and we did eventually get an arena, but by then my opportunity to play at the next level had already passed. But for years that’s all I wanted to do, was to play hockey.
“I taught myself as much as I could – I bought books on power skating, the tactical parts of the game. There were no DVDs or videos back then, so it was just whatever reading material I could get my hands on, in the end nly to still be playing bush hockey.”
There’s another intangible hockey skill that Sutherland learned along the way, though he didn’t find it in a book.
“The mental toughness was always a big thing, and you learn that from growing up in a remote fly-in community,” he said. “Learning Cree culture and values, for me it was always trying to find my place, and I always found that difficult. There was bullying in the community, and of course I encountered racism in the cities later in life.”
Sutherland says he now uses his considerable voice to speak out against bullying, and to push for good governance and economic development for remote First Nations communities like Attawapiskat.
“A lot of it, I believe, stems from the residential school legacy. A lot of us are just starting to learn what went on in those schools, and what happened to our parents makes us angry, the abuse they suffered, and we’re coming to terms with how to deal with those emotions. The alcoholism it brought into our homes, the broken families and mistreatment of aboriginal women – I think that residential schools legacy is where a lot of it came from.
“We do see ourselves as artists who are trying to be a part of that process of reconciliation. As an artist and a First Nations artist, I feel obligated to go out there and speak about what’s going on. And we’re seeing a political shift in how people see this whole process of reconciliation and what it really means.”
But on Friday, Sutherland will trade in those many hats for a hockey helmet as he sets out to show he can hold his own, whether he’s gripping his hockey stick or his guitar.
“With Midnight Shine, it certainly feels like we’re just arriving. I feel like I can touch and feel people I’ve only ever seen on TV or heard on iTunes.”
ahelmer@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/helmera
查看原文...
When the puck drops on the 14th annual JUNO Cup Friday, the team of grizzled rockers captained by Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy will be looking to a rising star on the Canadian music scene, who also happens to have some serious stick skills in his back pocket.
Adrian Sutherland, front man for breakthrough indigenous rockers Midnight Shine, spent three days driving to the Capital from the remote northern community of Attawapiskat, which most Canadians associate with a suicide crisis that became emblematic of the issues facing First Nations communities.
“It’s certainly been an interesting journey, and it hasn’t been an easy one,” said Sutherland. “Growing up in a remote environment is tough. You really are in survival mode. A lot of the remote bands in Canada’s Far North are still living off the land, and in order to do that you have to have a very special skill set when you’re out in the elements in any time of year.”
For Sutherland, that special skill set – from melting snow for drinking water to snaring rabbits each morning before school, to chopping firewood to heat the house or enduring days of darkness each time the generators would go out – manifested itself in his music, and also translated to his other passion: hockey.
On Thursday, Sutherland got to combine the best of both worlds when he took to the TD Place Arena practice ice with his fellow rockers in a star-studded pickup team that includes captain Jim Cuddy, Barney Bentall, Gord Bamford and local rockers Jim Bryson, Amanda Rhéaume, Kathleen Edwards, Menno Versteeg of Hollerado, and Matt Sobb and Steve Marriner of Monkeyjunk. They’ll square off against a team of NHL legends – including Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Phillips, Gary Roberts, Brendan Bell, Luke Richardson and Paul Coffey – for Friday’s charity game supporting the music education program MusiCounts.
RedBlacks star quarterback Henry Burris will coach the NHLers; legendary coach Brian Kilrea will take up his old perch as the rockers’ bench boss.
“I can’t stop smiling about it obviously,” said a beaming Sutherland. (It helps that Sutherland grew up a fan of the Ottawa Senators, and now finds himself facing off against some of the franchise’s biggest names.)
“Hockey has been a passion of mine for many, many years, but I haven’t played in a while and I’m kinda out of shape, and we’re up against some really talented ex-NHLers. So we’re coming here to lose pretty bad I suspect. But it’ll be fun.”
Sutherland spent two seasons patrolling the blue line for a senior AA hockey team when he lived in Alberta, but he acknowledged there’s a bit of rust that needs shaking.
“For me it’s just exciting to be a part of something and to raise money for a good cause, for something positive for others to benefit from,” he said. “And to have fun. I’m not there to prove anything. It’s about having fun. It’s hockey right? Canada’s favourite pastime.
“I grew up playing pond hockey on the frozen lakes, and we did eventually get an arena, but by then my opportunity to play at the next level had already passed. But for years that’s all I wanted to do, was to play hockey.
“I taught myself as much as I could – I bought books on power skating, the tactical parts of the game. There were no DVDs or videos back then, so it was just whatever reading material I could get my hands on, in the end nly to still be playing bush hockey.”
There’s another intangible hockey skill that Sutherland learned along the way, though he didn’t find it in a book.
“The mental toughness was always a big thing, and you learn that from growing up in a remote fly-in community,” he said. “Learning Cree culture and values, for me it was always trying to find my place, and I always found that difficult. There was bullying in the community, and of course I encountered racism in the cities later in life.”
Sutherland says he now uses his considerable voice to speak out against bullying, and to push for good governance and economic development for remote First Nations communities like Attawapiskat.
“A lot of it, I believe, stems from the residential school legacy. A lot of us are just starting to learn what went on in those schools, and what happened to our parents makes us angry, the abuse they suffered, and we’re coming to terms with how to deal with those emotions. The alcoholism it brought into our homes, the broken families and mistreatment of aboriginal women – I think that residential schools legacy is where a lot of it came from.
“We do see ourselves as artists who are trying to be a part of that process of reconciliation. As an artist and a First Nations artist, I feel obligated to go out there and speak about what’s going on. And we’re seeing a political shift in how people see this whole process of reconciliation and what it really means.”
But on Friday, Sutherland will trade in those many hats for a hockey helmet as he sets out to show he can hold his own, whether he’s gripping his hockey stick or his guitar.
“With Midnight Shine, it certainly feels like we’re just arriving. I feel like I can touch and feel people I’ve only ever seen on TV or heard on iTunes.”
ahelmer@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/helmera
查看原文...
