Future Leaders Get Support0

By MICHAEL PURVIS, THE SAULT STAR

Ted Nolan and his wife, Sandra, sent a busload of students off Thursday morning for what the famed hockey coach hopes will be “a life-altering experience.”

The kids — 52 of them, from high schools and elementary schools across the city — are taking part in a weekend leadership camp for aboriginal students under a partnership between Tim Hortons Children’s Foundation and the Ted Nolan Foundation.“With myself, being able to go to different places and have different experiences, going down to New York City and Chicago and places like that, going to powwows when I was a youngster, I just know how important it is for kids to have experiences,” said Nolan, the celebrated former Soo Greyhounds coach from Garden River First Nation, who went on to coach the Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders in the NHL.

“This experience here is not just a trip, not just go stay at a lodge and go see some sights, it’s an actual camp where the kids are going to learn some important lessons, which will carry on for the rest of their lives.”

The students were bound for Onondaga Farm, the newest of the Tim Hortons camps, built in 2002 in St. Georges, Ont.

The Sault Ste. Marie students will be the only ones there during the weekend, and will be joined by counsellors and aboriginal lead teachers from both the Algoma District School Board and Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board.

Campers will be challenged to step out of their comfort zone, and daily programs will include creative arts, the environment, and agriculture on a real working farm with cattle, lambs and horses. The students will also dabble in astronomy, recreation and adventure, archery, paddling and orienteering.

Nolan, who also played in the NHL during the early-to mid- 1980s, currently serves as vice-president of hockey operations for the American Hockey League’s Rochester Americans, which the local students will have a chance to see play during the weekend when they take a trip to New York.

Carrie-Lynne Smale thinks taking part in the leadership camp was “a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

“I don’t usually do a lot of things with other native kids, so this is a new experience for me,” said the Grade 9 St. Mary’s College student. Nolan established his foundation in 2004 and since then has given out scholarships for First Nation women.

“One of our mandates was youth and we’ve always had hockey camps and sports camps, but we wanted to have a leadership camp,” said Nolan. “In order to get the kids ready for the future, you’ve got to plan now.”