Nepean lacrosse player shares spirit with Iqaluit.
Noah and Bob Hoselton have spearheaded a lacrosse program in Iqaluit, Nunavut to help promote positive lifestyles for children and teenagers.
Daniel Nugent-Bowman
After seeing a video on YouTube, Bob and
Noah Hoselton had their father-son moment.
Noah, a Grade 10 student at South Carleton
High School, started watching an ESPN documentary
depicting the high suicide rate among youths in a small community just west of Iqaluit, Nunavut.
But then the video took an interesting
turn.
A local high school teacher introduced field
lacrosse to those in the region and formed the Kugluktuk Grizzlies. As a
result, the video showed the suicide rate decreased sharply.
The Nepean Knights minor lacrosse player
knew he wanted to make a difference.
Noah immediately consulted his father, who
has many business contacts for his graphic design company in the territory, and
the wheels were put in motion.
The 16-year-old decided to take a
two-pronged approach to helping those in Nunavut:
providing them with equipment and starting a camp which would teach them the
values of healthy living, coupled with improving their lacrosse skills.
“The lacrosse focused the teens and stopped
making them commit suicide,” Noah said. “I thought it was a good idea to do the
Nunavut
thing.”
The Hoseltons started gathering their contacts
to develop the NorthStar camp, which will run in Iqaluit at the end of August
and beginning of September.
As an assistant instructor with ProStar
Lacrosse, Noah made his pitch for a lead instructor of the NorthStar program.
He turned to Jason Wiles, a former National
Lacrosse League player, who taught Noah in the past.
Wiles accepted instantaneously.
“Noah was a very helpful and obedient
camper that always went above and beyond the call of duty with tasks to help
the councillors,” Wiles said in an email. “When Noah graduated from the camp,
because of age, he asked if he could help out as an instructor. Because of his
passion for the game and love of children I accepted his invitation.”
Once Wiles was onboard, “it just started to
snowball,” Bob said.
The Hoseltons then went to the Nepean
Knights for help gathering equipment, with Noah focusing on his minor
association, and Bob asking for assistance from the Jr. B outfit.
Nepean Knights Minor Lacrosse Association president
Peter Drisdelle coached Noah two years ago in bantam.
Because of Noah’s character, the
association posted signs asking people to donate equipment when registering for
this past season.
“He’s just an all-around good kid,”
Drisdelle said. “He’s a very quiet boy, but he’s well blended into the
community for a teen. I think he’s a few years ahead of everybody else with the
maturity level.”
Aside from the equipment, the association
donated nets and jerseys to Noah and NorthStar.
“If anything, we wanted to let people know
in other communities up north that people in the lacrosse community care,”
Drisdelle said.
Because the camp will generally deal with
younger players, the Jr. B team was only able to offer up limited equipment,
being that their players are between the ages of 17 and 21.
However they did what they could, offering
mostly goalie equipment.
“Bob’s the kind of guy who will sink his
teeth into anything and do a great job at it,” Knights president Peter Niemczak
said. “He’s been a real driving force in this. I don’t think it would have ever
gotten done without him. When he says he’s going to do something, the whole
lacrosse community in Ottawa
would just do whatever it could to get kids playing the game.
Bob said an arena in the area has been
secured, but there will also be some outdoor lacrosse if weather permits.
“Our broad perspective is to introduce them
to both forms and see which one sticks,” Bob said.
The plan, according to Bob and Wiles, is to
keep things rolling well into the future.
“Our feeling is that you need to have this
legacy program,” he said. “If you just go up there and run a camp and then
leave, it’s like a weekend computer course. You forget it.”
“We plan on starting in Iqaluit and every
year going to a new city to create a lacrosse league up there so that the teams
can come down to Ontario and participate in the provincials and other
tournaments throughout the year,” Wiles wrote.
But all that will come.
Right now Noah is focused on the immediate
future, where he will compete for Team Slovakia
– thanks to his mother’s Slovakian ancestry – at the World Lacrosse
Championships from July 15 to 24 in Manchester,
England.
And, of course, he’s also looking forward
to travelling up to Iqaluit to assist with the camp.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to pull it
off,” Noah said. “I just find it unbelievable when I think back on it. Just by
telling a few people, it started to bring everything together. All the people
are helping me and everyone.”
Camps are run by NorthStar free of charge.
However, the program needs to pay for transportation costs of the equipment,
arena expenses and other supplies.
Wiles said they are approximately $20,000
short of the fundraising goal.
Those interested in supporting the
NorthStar program can contact Wiles at wiles_jason@hotmail.com.\
daniel.bowman@metroland.com