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Hey fam. Pull up a chair. Grab your Pendleton. I have some thoughts.

Real quick, when I think about hockey, it helps me understand governance. My dad and his cousins loved the Oilers. I have so many photos of them in Oilers shirts and ball caps in Edmonton. Just regular family pictures, but you can feel the loyalty in them. The kind of loyalty where even when the team is stressing you right out, you are still watching. Still hoping. Still talking about the next game like you personally have a role in the lineup.

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And now my cousins, the ones my age, all of us 40-somethings trying to act calm but absolutely not calm during playoffs, we still do the same thing. Watching the Oilers on TV at home. Catching the Canucks in the arena. Sitting in Edmonton’s Ice District with the whole building feeling every shift. Texting each other like we are assistant coaches. Like any of us has NHL clearance. lol

But honestly, hockey makes sense to me. The coach does not lace up the skates. The coach is not taking the faceoffs. The coach is not blocking shots. The coach is not scoring the goals. That is management’s job. 🙊 But if players are throwing skate blades at each other, ignoring the rulebook, fighting their own teammates, trainers are sounding the alarm, and the dressing room is in open revolt, we stopped talking about a bad shift a long time ago. 

 

There is a difference between governance oversight and management. Management is trying to win tonight’s game. Governance oversight is making sure there is still a team, a league, a rulebook, and a franchise worth cheering for next season. Whether you are watching from the couch at home, sitting in the arena, or taking in a game in Edmonton’s Ice District, you can feel when a team has lost the room. You can feel when players are no longer moving together. You can feel when the issue is bigger than one missed pass, one bad line change, or one ugly period. Like one of my relatives used to say, sometimes you gotta show tough love. Sometimes you gotta say smarten up, quit acting up and listen to the coaches. 

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The same applies to self-government. Recognition matters. Of course it does. But recognition is not the finish line. Section 35 rights, jurisdiction, agreements, and mandates still have to be operationalized. They have to become systems, decisions, policies, workflows, accountability, and results that members can actually feel.

 

Self-government cannot just live in legal documents, briefing notes, or political speeches. It has to function. It has to improve people’s lives. It has to hold up when the pressure is on and the whole rink is full of people watching.

In Plains Cree, sîhtoskâtowin was explained to me by my language teacher as the idea of lifting each other up and supporting one another. To me, that means remembering what binds our hearts together. None of us does this work alone. And the same applies in hockey. No team wins because of one player, no matter how many jerseys are hanging at Lids with his name on the back. Ahem Mcwhat? Who? Just kidding.

 

The goalie matters. The defence matters. The trainers matter. The people taping sticks matter. The bench matters. The ones reading the room and calling out danger matter too. mâka mina, then again, when the rules are breaking down, people are getting hurt, and nobody seems to know who is enforcing the standards anymore, the issue is bigger than the next line change.

 

Sitting here writing this at my desk, I zoned out and looked up, and caught the gold homesense frame I got last fall when I need to remind myself about my why. It's my Capan Caroline Cardinal lookin' all mean muggin.  I know she had a little bit of a reputation for being a mean person at times, but maybe behind that was actually love and wanting to see more out of people. I like to think of it that way. I think to myself what would I tell her if I had to explain what I did for a living? (Do any of us working in governance know how to explain what we do when people ask what we do?). Would this analogy of hockey land for her? Would she call me out for sounding too fake and “moniyasak”? Or would she respect what I do? I’m not one of those “I just found out I’m Indigenous” people. I have been raised around aunts and uncles and Elders. I have a healthy fear of doing things right, by the book. I always feel performance anxiety when I have to do something for my family or my community, because people EVERYWHERE know who my dad is and my who my aunties are.  "You're Don's daughter" or "I know your Aunt Loretta". I’m going to get judged by the outcome of what I do and its transformative effect on others, not by the words that I write or say in public.  

 

The question is whether I could tell her, plainly, that governance work is not really about who took the penalty. It is about whether the people behind the bench saw the room clearly enough to protect the whole season and had a plan to get us to the playoffs.

That is the work Firestone Policy Group is built for. We support land-based, self-governing Nations exercising recognized section 35 rights and jurisdiction. We work where governance, Indigenous Legal Orders, law, operations, lands and resources, intergovernmental relations, risk, and leadership strategy intersect.

 

Our focus is practical. Turning jurisdiction into structure. We help nations turn their mandate from their membership, into action. We help nations operationalize reconciliations agreements and self-government agreements. Because self-government is not just about being recognized. It is about being ready to run your nation when the pressure is on, when the decisions matter, and when the whole rink is watching.

 

When I think about my grandparents and great-grandparents, I think about how much they did with so little. I think about the dignity they carried, no matter what the federal government or provincial government of Alberta said. They did not have perfect systems. They did not have endless resources. They did not always have polished language but they had family, community and culture. What inspires me on a personal level is that they came from the struggle and still made a good life for their families.

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And to any Nation doing this hard work right now, keep going. If you are trying to turn recognition into something your members can actually feel, keep going. If you are building systems with limited capacity, keep going. If you are carrying old responsibilities while trying to build something new, keep going. Our grandparents and great-grandparents left us work to carry forward. 

So pull up your sleeves. Fix the systems. Implement systems that can withstand changes of coaches. Remember to train hard and rest well. Remember to call the play. Remember to protect the room. Remember to support one another and lift each other up.

The season is not over.   I was once told "the most dangerous person in a room is an educated Indigenous person". To me that means more than just degrees and titles, or benchmarking using mainstream metrics. It means to ensure you walk your talk. It means to ensure you train hard so you are strong enough to play hard every season. Things that will help you are the 4 L's. Land, Laws, Language and Love. Return to your homelands. Speak your language.  Follow your Indigenous laws and customs. Love on your family and community, From my perspective, no one's coming to save me. Maka mina (then again), no one's coming to stop me either.  Wear that jersey with pride and be a loyal team member, no matter what team you play for! 

Ki nisitotên mâka? You following me, fam? 
 

Ahâw.