Winter Carnival heats up for broomball 

The Kahnawake Youth Center (KYC) Winter Carnival is, first and foremost, a fun, two-week long event filled with activities for community members young and old.

But that does not mean that the teams in the annual broomball tournament, which took place at the Kahnawake Sports Complex on Tuesday, were taking things lightly.

“A lot of our community members are competitive, and when they play sports like broomball, they want to win,” said Cheyanne McComber, community and family events coordinator for KYC.

At stake is a prize that will last the whole year, and beyond.

“It’s all about bragging rights. And their team’s name will go on the trophy. So, whenever they come to the youth center, they can check out our trophy case and be like ‘hey, my team is on there,’” said McComber. “And if they didn’t win, they are going to try harder next year.”

This year, broomball was full more than a week before the start of the Carnival - a regular occurrence for the very popular event.

But one team pulled out at the last minute on Tuesday, just hours before the tournament started, and with no team available to take its place, the schedule was changed to work with seven teams instead of the original eight.

The teams were split into two divisions, with the two best teams from each making the semi-finals.

In the first playoff round, Kanesatake defeated the Warriors and Goals R Us got the best of the Kahnawake Education Center team to meet in the finals.

Instead of one 12-minute period on one third of the Sports Complex’s ice surface, the finals consisted of two 10-minute periods on the full length of the ice.

Goals R Us spent the majority of those 20 minutes in the offensive zone, but were unable to generate any goals, leading to a 0-0 tie after regulation.

Next came a five-minute overtime, but that too did not break the stalemate.

To break the tie, there was, essentially, a skills competition. Each team started by sending three players for a shootout. Goals R Us and Kanesatake each scored on their initial shooter, but the next two were stopped, and the game remained tied.

Then, a player from each team shot the ball from the blue line into an empty net. When each team scored easily, it was decided to go back to a shootout.

What followed was eight rounds of edge-of-your-seat broomball. Goals R Us’ first shooter scored, with Kanesatake responding with a goal on their first shot.

Fourteen saved attempts later, which included shots from each team’s goalie, the game was still tied.

Back to shooting into an empty net, this time from centre ice. Finally, after three rounds of that, Goals R Us scored and Kanesatake missed, sending the hometown fans home happy.

“The team from Kanesatake, they were competitive, it was a good game,” said Dylan Stacey, one of the players for Goals R Us. Stacey did say that, to him, while the games were close, he felt that the new rule that mandated helmets for all meant some high-level teams did not want to participate.

“A win is a win. Maybe next year, it will be more competitive,” said Stacey.

McComber said the rule for mandatory helmets is indeed new for this year, to make sure everyone stays safe.

Case in point, during the first game of the day, one player fell on the ice and their helmet, which was not attached, came flying off when they hit the ice. The player was, thankfully, unharmed.

“If they didn't have the helmet, their head would be hitting the ice. It would create a way worse injury,” said McComber.

That first game was one of two Independant Living Center (ILC) games, played with support from Connecting Horizons and Mohawk Council of Kahnawake chief Ryan Montour.

The two ILC teams only play against each other, using helmets supplied by Connecting Horizons and jerseys from Kahnawake Shakotiia’takehnhas Community Services.

ILC started participating four years ago, as they sought a wintertime activity to join summer Challenger Baseball.

Montour, who joined in on the fun in both ILC games, said that it was important for him to take part in the game and support the ILC players.

“I’m an advocate for accessibility, and anything I can do to help, I’ll do it,” said Montour. “It keeps people active, all the kids in the locker room are smiling and having fun with each other, and for me, that’s priceless.”

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