Conestoga College’s free lacrosse classes highlight the sport’s Haudenosaunee history | CBC News

Most of us are familiar with the team sport lacrosse — it’s played with a net on a long handle, used to toss a rubber ball to score a goal.

But what’s perhaps less known about the sport is its rich Haudenosaunee history, particularly in southern Ontario.

People got a chance to learn more about that history during a series of free lacrosse classes offered at Conestoga College’s Doon campus.

Danielle Boissoneau, the college’s director of Indigenous initiatives, is one of the organizers behind the free classes.

She said the goal is to build bridges in the community.

“We didn’t really get that opportunity to create good relationships from the jump and now it’s an opportunity to recreate those relationships. Using a sport like lacrosse is one of the ways I think we could do it,” she said.

“It really does have a lot to do with education. It really does have a lot to do with how we’re learning about each other and recognizing each other’s humanity.”

Boissoneau helped organize the free lacrosse classes with the help of Kevin Sandy, who said he was called to the sport as a boy when his uncle gifted him his first lacrosse stick.

“My uncle Howard Sky, he used to travel around many years and talk and educate people about who we are as … people of the Long House,” Sandy said.

“He says many years later, you’re doing what he was doing and still doing it. People will say the newcomers and Canadians and Americans call it lacrosse, but we don’t call it that in my language we call it deyhontsigwa’ehs.”

He said his family still makes wooden lacrosse sticks the traditional way.

“There’s so many carvers [and] artists who are still doing that. And we’re keeping it alive because it’s medicine for us, it’s still part of our ceremony, it’s still part of our song, still part of our dances. And I think that’s really what makes us different is because we’re also doing some instruction in the language and hoping that people will understand that because that’s our responsibility.”

Sandy said it is important to understand the spirituality that traditionally goes into playing the sport.

“If we don’t have a wooden stick then we’ll probably cease to exist as the people,” he said. “I don’t think the general Canadian individual has that context. They don’t connect to the spiritual context. They don’t know that the stick comes through … the Mother of the Earth. They don’t know that.”

Sandy hopes his lacrosse lessons will teach his students the importance of kindness and empathy while playing the game.

They are teachings that participants like Chyler Sewell were excited to receive, while also getting a chance to take part in a fun outdoor activity.

“I was in high school two years ago and I haven’t had a chance to play again. So I heard of this event and I wanted to come out and just hang out and like move, especially with working online and working from home and not having a chance to move my body a lot,” Sewell said.

She said learning about the Haudenosaunee history of the game is important context for her.

“I’m Anishnaabekwe from Garden River and so being able to connect with community in that way definitely feels a lot better than like going to rec centre with some white guy teaching the class,” she said.

“I think a big thing for me [is] connecting with the land… There’s definitely importance to those … relationships between nations and so for me, connecting in a way that, physically embodies that connection on the land is really important.”