Miles Morrisseau
ICT
Ethan Bear, Ochapowace Cree Nation, is golden. Bear helped bring home a gold medal for Team Canada in the Men’s World Hockey Championship on Sunday, May 28, in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s annual competition.
The IIHF competition, co-hosted this year by Tampere, Finland and Riga, Latvia, brought teams together from around the world May 12-28 to compete for the crown of men’s international ice hockey supremacy.
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Most teams were populated with players, like Bear, from National Hockey League teams that didn’t make it into the Stanley Cup playoffs, and even some who got bounced in the first round.
Team Canada defeated Team Germany 5-2 in the gold medal game. Germany took home silver and co-host Latvia took the bronze, defeating Team USA 4-3 in a dramatic, overtime game.
The victory drew cheers across First Nations.
“Ochapowace is extremely proud of our warrior Ethan and Team Canada on winning World Championship Gold,” Okimaw Iskwew (Chief) Shelley A. Bear said in a statement to ICT.
“Ethan is an incredible young man that has achieved so much, continuing to be a positive role model for our youth of Ochapowace and the many Indigenous Nations across Canada.”
Fans and friends also took to social media to share their congratulations, including hundreds of the nearly 5,000 members of the Ethan Bear Appreciation Society on Facebook.
“So proud of Ethan Bear was always my hockey star. Awesome. My hero,” one fan posted.
“Way to go, Musqua,” another fan posted, using the Cree word for Bear. “U da Man, so proud of you.”
Bear — who captivated Indigenous audiences in 2020 when, as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, he wore a jersey with his last name written in Cree syllabics during an exhibition game — was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in the Ochapowace Nation about 110 miles east of the provincial capital.
He is one of three Indigenous players currently on the Vancouver Canucks roster, which also includes Brady Keeper on defense and Michael Ferland at forward. All are from the Cree Nation.
Bear drew inspiration from his brother Everett and other Indigenous hockey players, including Carey Price, Jordin Tootoo, Brandon Montour, Arron Asham and Michael Ferland. Montour is a defenseman for the Florida Panthers, who have advanced to the Stanley Cup finals.
Bear played four seasons in the Western Hockey League with the Seattle Thunderbirds, which won the league championship in 2017 and were awarded the Ed Chynoweth Cup. Bear was chosen the WHL’s top defenseman that year and took home the Bill Hunter Memorial Trophy.
He signed a three-year, entry-level contract with the Edmonton Oilers on July 2, 2016. He made his NHL debut against the Nashville Predators on March 1, 2018, and scored his first NHL goal in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks a few weeks later, on March 25.
He was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes in 2021 and spent part of that season and the beginning of the next with the team, before ending up in Vancouver in a trade for a fifth-round draft pick.
According to the Canucks fansite CanucksArmy.com, it was Vancouver that got the best out of the trade.
“The real story of Bear’s 2022/23 season with the Canucks is one that sounds dangerously close to a hockey cliché: he made the players around him better,” raved analyst Stephan Roget on the website on May 25, a few days before the championship game.
Breaking down the numbers and analyzing every moment of the game and whether it is a positive or a negative is a key part of today’s game. When it comes to Bear, the numbers don’t lie.
“His Corsi ranked second among Canucks defenders, trailing just Quinn Hughes (and Noah Juulsen, if you count him). Same goes for shot control. But Bear actually beat Hughes out (though not Juulsen) when it comes to his ratio of expected goals,” stated Roget.
“In fact, the only Canuck to play an entire season and wind up with a higher expected goals ratio than Bear was Elias Pettersson,” Roget said, referring to the three-time NHL All-Star who is considered the team’s franchise player.
Bear was partnered with fellow Canuck Tylers Myers for much of the IIHF tournament, but Bear was injured in Canada’s 4-1 quarter-final win over Finland team, which won silver last year and was one the favorites going in to this year’s competition.
Bear had to watch the gold medal game from the press box, but his skates were on after the game was over, and he shared in the team’s win to take his well-deserved gold medal.
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