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“It felt cool whven I scored a goal in the All-Star game. Lance set me up. There were six games going on at the same time, with an audience of about 30 people watching each game. I got the Most Inspirational Player award. I was so surprised,” said Scott Kuptana, who represented Team NWT in the first Indigenous Soccer Game, held at Albuquerque, New Mexico this year. Over twenty-two teams from Alberta, North West Territories, and Arizona USA gathered in the arid, grassy grounds of the University of New Mexico to compete in fourty degree heat for a week this August. According to the Under 19 Girl’s Division coach, Yvonne Carpenter, Scott overcame challenges in his running abilities with his determination to always “put out 110% on the field,” inspiring other players to follow suit.

The NWT Under 16 Boys team also overcame unfamiliar field conditions to win gold, scoring 5 - 1. Jordan Rogers, who is on the team, has traveled previously to Edmonton and Yellowknife for soccer games, but has never played on grass.

“ This is my first real outdoor tournament,” he said. Even the air quality was different, as Albuquerque is at a high altitude, 5200 feet above sea level. They compensated for the altitude sickness foreign players might feel by shortening the pitch, length of each game, and the field size. This made it closer to the conditions Inuvik plays.

Dwight Carpenter, an U16 member, was impressed by the skill of the other teams. “They way they played was ‘crazy’. They played a lot, and are good at it.

They have a better field. Usually we practice in a gym in Inuvik, or play in our mud field. I think we won because we played well as a team.”

The team had sharing circles before each game, complimenting each other on good plays to build up communication.

Donald Kuptana is coach of the U14 boys, and he observed that it was good to expose the Inuvik players to indigenous players from diverse backgrounds, especially since these players remained driven despite impoverished living conditions. “It made them want to work harder too,” he said.

Scott said, “Our routine was to wake up at 6am, take a shower, go to opening prayers, have breakfast, get ready, go to our games, have lunch, and spend the rest of the day in life skills workshops. Each team showed each other what their cultures does. Our team showed the other teams how to throat sing. We also made a poster of animals on our land. We wrote in our journals at 9:30pm and then went to bed at 10. It is so different from my summer in Inuvik, where I go to sleep at around 2am and wake up around noon. But even through it was a challenge getting up, it was still a lot more fun than staying home, the soccer games were awesome and we had new experiences everyday.”

Lance Gray recalls all the great laughs. As Inuvik did not have a large number of soccer players to form a competitive team, many of the team members are new to each other and to their positions. “In our final game, we had three forwards who weren’t really that experienced in defense. James, Dakota and I had so many mess ups in our defense, the ball was going everywhere. We would get scared but at the end we would just laugh.”

James Rogers, a good hockey player who is just picking up soccer said, “Going to Albuquerque changed the way I saw soccer. I like being a soccer player now.” His favourite memory from the trip is being part of a Saint’s Day celebration with the Peublo people. “We went to a town outside of Albu Jemez Pueblos to visit the elders,” he said.

“We went in a line and shook each elder’s hands. We also visited a Peublo family that fed us traditional food.”

Even the adults were delighted to take part in the cultural experience. “Four hundred people danced for four hours in 38 degree heat,” said Yvonne. “Each team had a sponsor family, and we went into their house to meet the clan. It was a big highlight. They had names like ‘Society of Turquoise’ or ‘Society of Pumpkin’, and all their grannies are dressed like our grannies from the Sahtu and North Slavey region, with colourful handkerchiefs on their head!”

“This game is a good prep for the North American Indigenous Games next year,” said Yvonne. “A lot of these boys have the opportunity to make the team, but they are not guaranteed spots. They have to train hard to make their bodies stronger and to develop their soccer skills and ability. There will be eighteen sports there, and thousands of athletes will take part. If they thought this was cool, they are going to have a life altering experience there.”

Yvonne also hopes to develop the girl players from NWT, as “there are a lot of great female players, and they deserve to play in the Arctic Winter Games, the Canada Winter Games, and have the same opportunities in the future too.”