Indigenous women design Player of the Game sticks

It was May 2022 and Angela Jason discovered herself working at a company job in Thunder Bay.

“I just kind of stopped having my heart in it,” Jason recollects.

That’s when the Ojibwe lady from Sheshegwaning First Nation, who had been portray and creating artwork in her free time for years, started having severe ideas about life exterior of the company world.

“It got to a point where I needed to ask myself … at what point am I kind of doing a disservice with my mental health by trying to hang on and at what point is the company not really benefiting from my time trying to hang on?” says Jason.

Eventually, she determined to stop her job and change into a full-time artist.

“I put in my two-week notice and I’ve been doing art since. It’s tough. Of course, anything worth doing tends to be a little bit scary,” says Jason, who works in a variety of mediums that features acrylic portray, stained glass, digital paintings and mural work.

Fast-forward practically a yr and the artist’s determination is paying off. Jason is certainly one of 4 Indigenous ladies from Ontario chosen to design the Player of the Game sticks, which might be handed out over the course of 31 video games on the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Brampton.

“It’s humbling,” says Jason, “It is acknowledging that my talent and skill is being recognized on such a stage, which is a huge honour.”

Cree Ojibwa artist Shawna Grapentine of Rainy River, Ont., Anishinaabe artist Cathie Jamieson and Shenoa Simon of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation had been additionally chosen to create Player of the Game stick designs.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” says Jamieson, who’s from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation however lives on Manitoulin Island. “I wasn’t expecting to be selected because I have never entered into anything like this before.”

This just isn’t the primary time Player of the Game sticks have featured Indigenous designs at Hockey Canada-hosted occasions.

Alberta-based artist Jason Carter created designs on the sticks handed out on the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship in Edmonton and 4 Indigenous artists from Atlantic Canada had been known as on to design the sticks on the 2023 World Juniors in Halifax and Moncton. 

However, the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship would be the first time that each one the taking part artists, lots of whom are self-taught, are ladies. 

“This truly is an honour,” says Grapentine, who owns Moon & Back Custom Arts. “To be on such a worldwide scale with Hockey Canada and the IIHF Women’s World Championship, representing not just Indigenous women but women as a whole and as an artist, to have my piece seen and represented in that way, it truly means a lot to me.”

Symbolic designs impressed by ladies

Called “Free Spirit,” Grapentine’s design is of a lady’s face with multicoloured hair flowing throughout the blade. The colors symbolize totally different races, challenges, strengths and weaknesses of the feminine expertise. 

“When I sat down to design the piece that was chosen, it was thinking about the shape of the stick, the blade, and what it represents to be a female in sports and just thinking about women and their walks of life,” says Grapentine. “From race to being a mom to being a business owner, all these different hats and journeys that so many women experience.” 

Inspired by the motion that hockey gamers make, Jamieson opted for a big eagle on the finish of the blade going through in the direction of the shaft of the stick.

“It’s highly regarded for being a messenger, but also because of its strengths and qualities of speed, agility, sight, you know, swift, meticulous, moves in action,” says Jamieson, who works with a wide range of mediums that features acrylics. “These women in this championship, they’re just as swift and meticulous and as elegant as these birds, these eagles, our messengers.” 

In entrance of the eagle is a sequence of vibrant circles and a floral association, which represents the life cycle. 

“Those colour nodes reflect … those stages of life, those life cycles when you’re growing from a baby, a youth an adult to an elder and that you’ll have your family always around you and with you,” says Jamieson. “I took that concept is our women are carriers of messages.”

Meanwhile, Simon’s design incorporates a snapping turtle surrounded by water.

“I want other individuals to be inspired and curious when they see my art, and to create their path in the world that will lead them to achieve great things and to do the same for others,” says the 21-year-old.

Jason additionally opted for a lady in her design, making a stylized profile of an Indigenous lady’s face on the base of the blade trying upwards.

“With Hockey Canada and it being a kind of a celebration of the women that make up these teams, I did want to feature a profile of a woman, not so much with detailed features that you can look at and go ‘Oh that’s so and so’ but more something that anyone can kind of see in themselves,” explains Jason.

Above the lady’s face and working up the shaft of the stick are the provincial and territorial flowers of Canada in a stylized Ojibwe floral sample.

“This tournament has players from all over the world but just with it being held in Canada, I wanted to kind of focus on that side,” says Jason. “The purpose why I selected flowers is simply their versatility, it isn’t simply their bodily magnificence, but in addition their resilience.”

The place of the lady’s face is symbolic as a result of it represents the concept of girls being the muse of a group, based on Jason.

“Whether that community is kind of on the larger scale, like something with Hockey Canada or something smaller,” she says. “Whether it’s your hometown or if your community is your group of friends or just even at home, women do have a very, very strong foundational role in those communities.”