Team Eastern Door and the North working hard

The 2025 National Aboriginal Hockey Championship (NAHC) is underway in Kamloops, British Columbia, and the week-long tournament features 7 players from Kahnawake on the boys’ and girls’ Team Eastern Door and the North (EDN) rosters.

While the results on the scoresheet have not been what was hoped for - both teams are winless as of writing - girls’ team assistant coach Kwaronienhawi Jacobs said they are not focusing on the numbers, but on the experience of being at the tournament and playing hard for each other.

“I find they’re very good at connecting and working hard together, and they all want to be here. They all have a positive attitude. They’re really pushing themselves,” said Jacobs, who added that some injuries early in the tournament have not stopped them from trying hard in the games.

The girls’ EDN team is quite young, as many of them are 13 or 14 years old in a U16 tournament. As such, the physical aspect of the game and chemistry are some of the aspects to work on, and hopefully the players will be able to work on these together in the next few years of playing at the NAHC, said Jacobs.

“I think the other teams have the upper hand on having these teams be put together a lot longer than we have. Some of them have been playing on the same exact team for years, and our girls get to play with each other for one week, plus the tryout. Connection is really important for us here,” said Jacobs.

Having experienced the NAHC as a player herself, Jacobs said that those first moments in the tournament can be shocking.

“I know our first game, the first period was a shock for most of them, they didn’t realize how fast, how aggressive, and how amazing some of these other players are,” said Jacobs.

But that has not deterred the players - far from it.

“It’s giving them the boost to try harder and push themselves and start to see different things of how they can work their bodies and move around faster and work off each other,” said Jacobs.

“There’s no negativity. They’re helping each other out, giving each other ideas. They all recognize what they need to do for themselves and each other. They are just building each other up and getting each other going.

“And I think that’s the best part, you need a team who’s ready to listen and be open and push themselves to the best of their abilities.”

On the boys’ side, assistant coach Mike Stacey said that while they are still winless, the team has actually started their games well, for the most part.

“We come out strong in the first period. Each game we have come out hard hitting and scoring, taking the lead,” said Stacey.

“But then we come out flat in the second. We take bad penalties in key moments of the game. We need to keep our minds in the game and be ready to come out each period with the same intensity.”

Indeed, in quite a few of the boys’ EDN team’s games, one powerplay for the other team completely reversed their momentum, leading to several goals against in a short amount of time.

Their latest game, a 6-6 tie with Team British Columbia on Wednesday afternoon, was another lead erased by the other team, as Team EDN was up 6-5 with less than a minute left in the game - but to get to that point, EDN had to do a comeback of their own, down 4-2 midway through the game.

“The boys are working hard. They are trying their best,” said Stacey.

The full tournament results are available on the NAHC website, with the tournament running until May 10.

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