CBC Indigenous language Olympic coverage to include hockey in Inuktitut and Eastern Cree
CBC
For Pujjuut Kusugak, doing commentary in Inuktitut for the Olympic men and women's hockey games is a dream come true.
"I am a hockey player. I still play. I am still coaching and to use our language and hockey to help build some understanding," said Kusugak. "When this opportunity came up, I jumped all over it."
The Olympic Winter Games get underway in Beijing on Friday with the opening ceremonies and will run until Feb. 20.
Kusugak and David Ningeongan will be providing live play-by-play in Inuktitut for all of the men and women's hockey games during the Olympics, a first for the CBC.
They are part of CBC's Indigenous languages coverage of the games, which will also include coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies in Eastern Cree, as well as some select men's and women's hockey games in Eastern Cree in both Southern Inland and Northern Coastal dialects that are spoken in Quebec Cree communities.
Both Kusugak and Ningeongan are from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, where they say hockey rules.
"Hockey is just so relatable up North," said Kusugak. "Pretty much every community knows hockey and coming from Rankin Inlet, we're the self-proclaimed hockey town of Nunavut."
Ningeongan has been providing play-by-play of hockey games on local radio in Nunavut for more than 12 years.
"Hockey… there's not a lot of other sports that people are engaged with North of 60 really," said Ningeongan from Toronto, where he and Kusugak are already preparing for their coverage.
For the Inuktitut language hockey coverage, Ningeongan has been working on the terminology for more than a decade.
He was also the first Inuk to do play-by-play during the Fred Sasakamoose National Aboriginal Hockey Championship in Saskatoon. He also worked with CBC North during it's Arctic Winter games coverage in 2019.
Meanwhile, Kusugak is a former mayor of Rankin Inlet and played AAA hockey and Junior A hockey in Ontario. He also coached both the local and territorial Nunavut teams.
Dorothy Stewart, host of CBC North's Cree-language morning show, Winschgaoug, on CBC North Quebec, provided Cree-language coverage of the opening ceremonies of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
"I think it will make it extra special for the Cree people of Eeyou Istchee," said Stewart.
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