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Six Nations vying to bring street hockey festival to first Indigenous community in 2024

The front entrance of a large building. The top half of the exterior is a light blue colour with black writing across. The bottom half of the exterior is a light grey brick with a glass sliding door on the right side. A Light blue water tower can be seen in the distance over the building.
The Six Nations Sports & Cultural Memorial Centre (pictured) is being discussed as one of the potential locations to host a Play on! Canada Street Hockey Festival event in May 2024. Photo by CJKS.
Andrew Dow - CJKS - Ohsweken • ON | 30-08-2023
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Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) have committed their support to Six Nations Parks and Recreation (SN Parks & Rec.) efforts in bringing the Play On! Canada Street hockey festival to the Six Nations community next year.

This week, council wrote a letter of support and will provide a financial contribution to begin planning for the event which is proposed to take place on May 10-12, 2024.

SN Parks & Rec. Director, Cheryl Henhawk says they were approached by the Indigenous Sport and Wellness Ontario (ISWO) and Play On! Canada to host the event in late 2022. Play On! Canada is looking to establish their street hockey festivals in Indigenous communities which have returned in 2023 but were put on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, Henhawk says the events featured 4,000 participants. If the planning moves forward, the event would be the first time an Indigenous community would host the street hockey event.

Six Nations Chief, Mark Hill spoke on the event coming to Six Nations.

"A great initiative. I think we're too early on to know more of the details but I'm sure those details will be worked out in the coming months and leading up to the event itself."

Henhawk says the site venue is still to be determined but says the community has a few options being weighed.

"I know they haven't determined the site yet. So whether they'd have to get permission to maybe block off a street somewhere, I'm not sure. Or whether we use the parking lot here in front of the community hall and the Arena," she said.

"That could be an option it's just that our parking lot is rather rolling, it has some slopes to it," she added. "So it still has to be determined."

Chief Hill said involving local businesses would enhance the experience for community members and ensure that Six Nations is able to benefit from this event and similar future events. 

"It's a great initiative where we can further collaborate within our own programs and services as well as our business community," he said.

"That happens to be around community awareness [month], so maybe a lot of items could be tied into this to see that we get our best benefit from this event."

During the Aug. 23 General Finance meeting SNEC approved the recommendation to provide a letter of support and committed to hosting the 2024 event. They will also provide the financial contribution to begin the planning of the proposed event.

For the full CJKS story listen below:

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