Teacher gets students cheering for Raptors in Anishinaabemowin

Raptor fever exploded across the country in 2019 as the team edged closer and closer to its first National Basketball Association championship. 

Dominic Beaudry is a teacher with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board and a huge fan of the Raptors, Canada's only NBA team.

"I really enjoy the sport because there's so much action and drama throughout the game," said Beaudry.

"I'm also a hockey fan but sometimes you watch a hockey game, and you watch a whole game, and you're lucky to see one goal, but with basketball there's somebody scoring every 30 seconds so it's really entertaining."

Beaudry was pretty confident that his team was going to take the championship. "The Raptors are just gelling, they're coming together at the right time, their three-point shooters are lighting it up, and Kawhi Leonard has just been a monster. He's just amazing."

Beaudry is such a fan, he even translated the Raptors' popular slogan "We the North" into Anishinaabemowin or Ojibwe.

"For us, 'We the North' translated is Kiinwi Giiwedinong," said Beaudry. "It's kind of like the four directions, so giiwedinong is the north star.

"This being the United Nations Year of Indigenous Languages, it's always great to be able to share a language at a variety of levels and to be able to share it on CBC Radio is really awesome," said Beaudry. 

Beaudry is active on social media and says he gets a lot of messages from people asking how to say certain words. "I see a real resurgence in folks wanting to learn more of our language, not only from Ojibwe or First Nations but from Canadians all across the spectrum," said Beaudry. "It's really great times for me."

He offered other Ojibwe basketball terms such as kookibinaagan bkwaakwot for basketball and chi-gete kaadi-genebig for raptor. "That's as close as we can get," he said. Chi-gete would be something from the past, a very long time ago, and kaadi-genebig is similar to a creature like a crocodile or alligator.

Now that basketball is such a hot topic, Beaudry says these are teachable moments for people who are interested in the sport, especially his students.