Jordin Tootoo returns home with a mission to save others from his brother’s fate

RANKIN INLET, NUNAVUT — The glass shook, the bleachers thundered, the ceiling dripped and more than a thousand fans pushed to the edges, doubling the capacity of an old rink in Rankin Inlet, on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay.

John Voisey sat in the penalty box, anxious but ready. He’d waited his entire life for this chance. Since Voisey was a child, the legend of Jordin Tootoo, the first Inuk NHL player, had coloured his dreams.

Now they were skating in the same game.

And as the crowd hollered, Tootoo stepped into the opposing team’s box, just a small gap between them. With his hero just a few feet away, Voisey nervously considered his words and gathered the courage to speak:

“Fuck you, Jordin Tootoo!” he said. “You’re a piece of shit.”

A one-two punch. And it landed.

Tootoo turned to Voisey and smiled.

“That was amazing. Dream come true,” Voisey said later. “I was super nervous. … That’s my role model.”

The 18-year-old had driven his snowmobile three hours across the snowy tundra from the remote hamlet of Whale Cove, with five of his friends huddled in a wooden sled behind him. They made the journey to play in one of the few hockey tournaments that teams from Nunavut are able to compete in each year.

But this one held special meaning because it was the first time Jordin Tootoo was playing hockey in his hometown since moving south to play when he was 14 years old.

Tootoo retired from the NHL last fall after a 13-year-career. He returned to Rankin Inlet to a hero’s welcome — no less than you’d expect for Wayne Gretzky in Brantford, Ontario, or Sidney Crosby in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. But in many ways, Tootoo means even more to his hometown and this territory. Because in communities across Nunavut, where hockey is a central part of many lives, only one man has ever made it to the place that young players dream of reaching.

As Tootoo stepped back onto the ice — to a mix of cheers and jeers—he skated beneath a sweater stitched with number 22, which hung from a steel rafter above center ice. It matched the number in the heart-shaped patch on his sweater, and on sweaters and helmets on each of the players competing in the Terence Tootoo Memorial.

For Tootoo, this was about more than a hero’s return. It was about remembering the one who never made it home.

When they were children, Terence Tootoo always made sure his little brother was bundled and warm inside the narrow, cluttered mudroom in the tiny green house where they grew up. Then he’d flip his equipment bag over his shoulder in the garage and twist the strap around his stick, holding it against his chest for support.

“OK, Jordin,” Terence would say. “Let’s go.”

Jordin, three years younger, would pull his own bag over his shoulder, twisting the strap around his stick, mimicking his older brother the way younger brothers do.  And together the Tootoo boys would push out into the cold. They’d trek across the street where they often played road hockey until well after midnight, and past a metal garbage bin dented by hundreds of practiced slap shots — crack, thud … crack, thud … crack, thud. Then they’d cut between two schools, down a hill and across a small, frozen lake in the center of Rankin Inlet.

The Tootoo brothers made the trip every day. Terence always walked first, shielding his little brother from the sharp winter wind. Often when it stormed and the gusts whipped in at more than 30 mph, Terence pulled Jordin across the lake on a sled. Sometimes, if it got bad enough, Terence walked backward. He knew the path by heart.

The rink— the Singiituq Complex —was a beige box with tin siding, icicles hanging from its snow-covered roof. It was often as cold inside as out. Steep wooden stands lined one side, with players’ benches on the other. The space between the end board and the wall required a sideways shuffle to pass through. Frost covered the steel emergency exit doors. The ice itself was hard in some spots, soft in others and dripping condensation made small pools in random areas.

The Tootoos played there for hours. Often with their father, Barney, coaching them through skating drills. But also in chippy scrimmages, where they would battle with friends.

The rink is at the heart of Rankin Inlet, the way it is in many small Northern communities. It was built in the mid 1980s to replace an old dome on natural ice, which had been an upgrade in the ‘70s from the outdoor rinks shoveled on the lake. Those still appeared every winter, of course. But the rink was where friends and families gathered through weekends and evenings to watch and play the game. They watched the Tootoo legend unfold before their eyes. Terence, the gifted older brother, amazed them with his swift, graceful skill. He could wrist a puck from one of end the ice and make it sail through the air into the middle of the net at the other end. Jordin, always playing with the older kids, was fast and ferocious. When he was 12, he put a 6-foot-3 opponent from Yellowknife through the glass and into the stands with a check.

Even though the Tootoos’ talent quickly outgrew the tiny rink, the place would always represent the best escape from a home mired by alcoholism.

Their parents, Barney and Rose, were—and remain—well-respected in Rankin Inlet. Rose was a tough-minded woman of Ukrainian heritage who grew up in rural Manitoba. Barney was a charming man and a talented hockey player from Churchill, in northern Manitoba. After they met, they moved north to Nunavut for work, eventually settling in Rankin Inlet. Along with their older sister, Corinne — the Tootoos were popular and talented. The family seemed to have everything together. But inside, behind the curtains, alcohol took a devastating toll.

Booze was a routine part of life in the Tootoo home, particularly on weekends, when illicit shipments arrived in the dry community. Jordin did his best to avoid being home, especially when his strong-willed parents fought. Or when his father — so calm and free while out hunting — would spiral into anger, and sometimes violence, when he was drinking.

The binge drinking sometimes spilled out into local gatherings. When he was 10, Tootoo remembers his mother waking up the brothers and telling them to go get their father, who had been out drinking all night. So Terence bundled up his little brother as he often did and set out into the minus-50 night to collect the man who was unwilling, or unable, to end the party.

Terence was the protector at home too, shielding his little brother as best he could from the complicated tension at home. He was close to his parents and was able to play the peacemaker when rage took over. It happened regularly.  Often little things — like the boys getting their boots soaked in a puddle — could set their parents off, especially when they were drinking.

When friends wanted to come over, the Tootoo brothers would invent a reason to play at their house instead — or they’d push their road hockey game over for another hour or two or hang out at the rink as long as possible. Hockey was the best escape. They could stretch it out for hours, getting lost in the game.

The arena was a second and happier home. When he was young, Jordin watched the action as closely as he could, copying the way his father tied his skates and taped his shin pads when he got dressed for his nightly old-timers’ scrimmage. He watched the force in Terence’s stride, the way he moved with the puck like it was attached to his stick — and the way he never backed down. Terence let Jordin play with him and the older kids, and Jordin did his best to imitate his hero. Terence told Jordin he’d always let him play, but that he had to fight his own battles on the ice. Jordin was determined. Every time he got knocked down, he jumped right back up.

After rolling over his opponents in a tournament in Yellowknife when he was 13, Jordin was invited to play with a team in Fort Providence, in the Northwest Territories. He made the move and when hockey programs in the South began to take notice,  he was soon asked to join a competitive rep team in Spruce Grove, near Edmonton.

Away from home, in a new world, Jordin constantly reached out to his brother, which at the time meant sending notes back and forth by fax machine. Terence had also moved south to play hockey. He was a star player for a tier-two junior team called the Opaskwayak Cree Nation Blizzard in The Pas, Manitoba. The Blizzard won three provincial titles in a row with Terence on the roster. And in his final two seasons with the OCN Blizzard, Terence was the team captain and leading scorer.

Jordin was drafted by the Brandon Wheat Kings in the Western Hockey League and when he failed to make the team as a 15-year-old, he moved to The Pas to play beside his brother — and against players who were as old as 21. Jordin says that season was the most fun he ever had in hockey. The team was stacked with talent and won another championship. And life away from the rink was a constant party. Drinking was a big part of the junior hockey culture and Jordin partook as much as he could with his older teammates, until his big brother would send him home. Terence remained the protector.

In The Pas, the brothers leaned on each other. They had found a way out of Rankin Inlet — and the anger and violence of home. But they played only one season together. Jordin made the Wheat Kings as a 16-year-old and quickly became one of the top prospects in the game, barreling toward an NHL career. After his second season in Brandon, he was drafted by the Nashville Predators. The following year, Jordin led the Wheat Kings in scoring with 32 goals and 39 assists — and penalty minutes, with 272.

That same year (2001-02), Terence found a spot with the Roanoke Express in the East Coast Hockey League, a minor league pro team in Virginia. He became the first Inuk to play professional hockey and was a fan favorite. He was a fast skater who played hard and pestered his opponents — who were often stunned by his quick left when they’d fight him.

After his first season in Roanoke, Terence joined Jordin at his billet’s house in Brandon. They spent the summer together, training for a chance to get one step closer to their dreams. Terence, with a chance to move up to the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League. Jordin, among the best young players in the game and on his way to the NHL.

They were almost there.

A painting above the doors inside the Singiituq Complex tells the story on the other side of those dreams. Next to the words “Rankin Inlet Home of Jordin Tootoo,” with his name written in Inuktitut, there is an image of a player skating in a Team Canada #22 sweater.

The image reflects a time, in 2002, when Jordin Tootoo represented Canada at the World Junior Hockey Tournament — and endeared himself to a hockey-mad nation with his fearless intensity.  If Tootoo hadn’t yet solidified his status as the pride of Nunavut, he did in Halifax that winter. He even wrote the name of the territory on his sticks during the tournament.

Local fans, too young to remember, still talk about the time Tootoo represented Canada at the 2002 World Juniors. (Dan Robson)

But before the most important games of his life, Tootoo had thought about quitting. It was a message from Terence that kept him going.

“Jor, go all the way,” he’d written.

And Jordin would, for him.

Seventeen years later, he shuffled through a packed lobby beneath that painting and a framed Nashville Predators sweater with his name on it. He was greeted by familiar faces, people who knew him growing up, eager to shake his hand. Young eyes followed him wherever he went. Players who were just toddlers back then still bring up the time that Tootoo played for Canada when reciting what they admire most about him, even though they have little memory of the accomplishment. Several remember players he fought in the NHL, like Jarome Iginla and Sean Avery.

“Jordin!” a little boy in a black-and-yellow homemade Pittsburgh Penguins parka sheepishly called as Tootoo passed him. “Jordin?”

“Is that Jordin,” the boy said, turning to his friend as Tootoo slipped through a door toward the locker rooms.

It’s difficult to overstate the impact Tootoo’s NHL career had on Nunavut and Inuit youth who grew up admiring him. While many kids in the territory grow up watching NHL stars on television, there is little chance they’ll reach that level. Tootoo remains the only player from Nunavut and of Inuit heritage to have played in the NHL. While many young fans from the territory have idolized players like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, Tootoo has always been the local icon — the living example that, yes, their dreams are possible.

And even if those NHL dreams are unlikely, it doesn’t diminish the passion that so many have for hockey in communities like Rankin Inlet. In fact, hockey plays a central role in the remote communities scattered across Nunavut. Young kids watch older kids representing their small towns and dream about one day doing the same.

In Whale Cove, with a population of fewer than 500 people, the local men’s team scrimmages against itself, breaking into two teams because there are no other games to play. In the tiny Whale Cove rink, frost climbs up the walls, the glass around the boards is perpetually foggy and a misty cloud often hovers over one end of the ice. It’s like playing hockey in a meat freezer. But that does nothing to diminish the passion that players like forward Simon Enuapik and goalie David Oklaga have for the game. Aside from hunting caribou, hockey has been their biggest love.

“We play every day,” said Oklaga. “Monday to Friday, 9 to 11. Saturday and Sunday, 8 till 10. … No refs, no ice cleaning — just keep playing.”

It’s not something they are willing to go without. A couple of years ago, Simon crashed feet first into the boards after being hauled down on a rush. He cracked open the ball joint and broke another bone in his ankle. He looked down and saw his foot hanging sideways. It took four days to get a flight to the hospital in Winnipeg — and another four days to get surgery. Now his ankle is held together by two rods, and a metal plate with seven screws.

“Two weeks after my cast came off, I went back on the ice,” Enuapik said, with pride.

Each year there are only a couple of tournaments that bring teams together from communities across Nunavut to play in heated battles against rivals. Teams travel from communities like Coral Harbour on Southampton Island at the entrance to Hudson Bay, and Baker Lake, more than 160 miles inland — and Naujaat, on Repulse Bay, at the edge of the Arctic Circle. Some will fly over the icy sea. Others will snowmobile along trails marked occasionally by gas cans and sticks, moving into the white horizon, watching the grey clouds that hang over Hudson Bay where the ice breaks into the open water.

Enuapik and Oklaga traveled to Rankin Inlet in the sled pulled by John Voisey — the player who swore admiringly at Tootoo from the penalty box. Voisey decided his friends didn’t need the foam padding he usually puts down, so they bopped and bobbled along the tundra on the sled’s hard, wooden bottom. Voisey pretended not to see them waving at him to slow down.

The team from Arviat traveled six hours by snowmobile to get to Rankin Inlet, thankful the weather had reached a relatively balmy minus-35 Celsius (minus-31 Fahrenheit) — much better than the minus-60 Celsius other teams traveled through to get to a tournament in Arviat in January.

“I do a lot of hunting,” said Andrew Kuksuk, who made the trip from Arviat. “So this was just a joy ride.”

Tracks from across Nunavut led to Rankin Inlet for one of the few tournaments held in the territory each year. (Dan Robson)

Tootoo sat next to his life-long friend, Troy Aksalnik, as they laughed in the locker room just like when they were boys. Warren Kusugak, a few years older, sat on a chair nearby. He became the team’s coach when his playing days slipped away. He was Terence’s best friend. As he unpacked the gear from his Chicago Blackhawks bag in the dank dressing room, Tootoo thought about how his brother would pull his frozen gear out of his bag and try to thaw it out before they dressed. Sitting back there, while a full house roared for another tight game just beyond the hall, he felt like a child again.

His NHL career behind him, Tootoo stepped back on the ice where he first learned the game. Of course, he is much bigger and stronger now, but he didn’t let up when the puck dropped. His speed and hockey sense alone should have allowed him to dance around the players on the opposing teams. But they didn’t back away. And Tootoo played like a kid from Rankin Inlet, pushing aside the polish of his NHL experience. He jabbed and slashed and used his strength to fend off opponents eager to get their shots in. There were few pleasantries, and several collisions on the small surface.

The crowd that initially greeted Tootoo as a hero, jeered while he played against the men from their hometowns. They pushed in shoulder-to-shoulder in the steep wooden stands, and several rows deep in the corners. They hung over the glass along the far walls and beside the team benches. They hooted and hollered. They slammed and stomped.

Each game was followed by family and friends back home who were unable to make the journey — with the games streamed live on Facebook and play-by-play broadcast over the radio in Inuktitut. Winning felt as important as it would have in an NHL game or on the street near the green house where the Tootoo brothers and their friends battled for a homemade Stanley Cup for hours through cool summer nights.

As the Rankin Inlet Miners played an All-Star team of young players chosen to represent Nunavut in an upcoming tournament out east, Tootoo took particular exception to a player he thought got too rough so he gave him a tap between the legs. After the young man hit the ice in agony (he was well known for refusing to wear a jock, according to several in the crowd), he jumped up and went after Tootoo. The brave soul tried to clutch Tootoo’s sweater, but was quickly held back by his outstretched arm. Tootoo sneered at the kid, shaking his head — offering fair warning that he should proceed with caution. The young man kept jawing at Tootoo and was tossed from the game while Tootoo was escorted to the penalty box. Next to the glass where the action unfolded, a man in a camouflage hunting parka took exception to the referee’s verdict.

“You chicken shit!” he yelled at the official. “You old bastard! You prick.”

The crowd stirred, thrilled by the outburst.

“Why, because he’s an All-Star?” the man continued, critical of the disproportionate penalties. “Fuck that.”

Tootoo laughed at a video of the incident after the Miners won the heated contest. The tension was welcome. It wouldn’t be hockey in Rankin Inlet without a little heat. This was no charity scrimmage.

During another game, the team from Repulse accused Tootoo, who they called “NHL guy,” of paying off the referees.

“Buddy,” Tootoo told one of their players. “I’ll rip your head off and eat you alive.”

There was no response.

From the outside, at 22 years old, Terence Tootoo seemed to have a firm grip on life. He’d pursued his dream in hockey and was carving out a career in the minor-pro ranks. He was the pillar of a respected family that was quietly mired in turmoil and pain. He was his brother’s best friend — his role model, his hope and inspiration.

But one night in late August of 2002, Terence was stopped by police in Brandon and received a DUI. His car was impounded and the officers dropped him off at Jordin’s billet’s house. Jordin had been out with him that night, but had stayed at his girlfriend’s place.

When Terence was missing the next day, Jordin thought he’d gone out into the countryside to blow off some steam after getting hit with a DUI right before training camp.

But that night, Terence had taken a shotgun and three shells from the billet’s garage. He walked to a wooded area near the house and fired one shot into the air. The next shell misfired. The third didn’t.

After Terence’s body was discovered, Jordin read the short note that he’d left beside his bed before heading to the garage.

“Jor, go all the way,” it said. “Take care of the family. You are the man. Terence.”

Tootoo carried that message — along with the anguish and confusion of his brother’s death — for the rest of his career. It was there a few months later when he played for Team Canada at the World Juniors. And when he went on to play for the Nashville Predators, where he delighted fans with his aggressive play. But while Tootoo inspired the dreams on young players in Nunavut and across Canada, he was haunted by past nightmares and found refuge in his old family demons. He carried that pain to every bar and late-night party. And to the bottom of every bottle he could find.

It wasn’t until the Predators forced Tootoo into rehab in 2011 that he realized how far he’d fallen. With his career hanging in the balance, he saw how close he was to throwing it all away. He received counseling during a month-long stay in a treatment facility. He returned to the Predators, fully committed to sobriety — and finally sought the help he needed to deal with the pain of Terence’s death and the trauma he’d endured as a child.

Today, Tootoo leans on others who understand his battle, regularly texting friends like former NHLer Brian McGrattan and Rich Clune of the Toronto Marlies, who have both openly shared their struggles with alcoholism and a commitment to sobriety. And Tootoo continues therapy, knowing that his life is a constant work in progress.

Terence Tootoo’s memory is still cherished and mourned in his hometown years after his death. (Dan Robson)

Across Rankin Inlet, those who knew and loved Terence still grapple with his death. It’s felt throughout the locker room of the Miners, a team of players who grew up with the Tootoos — or grew up admiring them.

Troy Aksalnik, Jordin’s best friend, looked up to Terence like a brother. He has a tattoo on his chest of the letters TER and the number 22 framed in a heart and crossed hockey sticks.

David Clark, another Miners teammate, idolized Terence as a kid, marveling at his skill and carefully watching the way he taped his stick and tied his skates. Several photos of Clark’s idol are framed in his office overlooking the ice, where he works as the town’s athletic programs director.

And his loss is still felt by the Miners coach, 37-year-old Warren Kusugak, who sat in the Miners locker room after a game, reminiscing about how he and Terence first started playing hockey on that ice when the rink opened when they were 5.

For years, they rushed there after school every day, scrimmaging for a couple of hours — then went home for dinner and made their way back to the rink for practice.

“In the North, hockey is everything,” Kusugak said.

Over Christmas holidays, they hosted road hockey tournaments under the street lights, events that stretched until 2 and 3 in the morning. Dozens of friends battled through the freezing temperatures. “When we started playing, you’d forget how cold it was,” Kusugak said. They gained bruises, lost teeth and settled differences with fists — until a winner was finally declared, securing a coveted Cup made of a Lego base, with a gardening pot and mixing bowl attached by crazy glue and random screws.

Kusugak flipped through old photographs he keeps on his phone from those long-ago days. Images of his friends lined up in rows for a team picture, during the one tournament they would get to play each year — the one time they weren’t practicing and playing against each other.

He pointed to Terence, smiling in his yellow sweater.

“Terence had a big heart,” he said.  “He always went out of his way to help everyone. He was a leader.”

He paused for a moment, trying to find the words to describe what Terence left behind.

“He left a —” Kusugak said. “How would you say that?”

He settled on an “impossible void.”

Simone Clark, a teacher for four decades in Rankin Inlet, watched the tournament from the window in her son’s office above the ice. She knew the name of almost every player on each team. The Tootoo boys and their friends were constantly at her house while they were growing up, filling the place with laughter. She remembers the brothers returning home after they’d gone south to play hockey, always returning to the schools to speak with younger students. Clark remembers Terence telling them that there is never a problem that’s too big that you can’t get help for. He was an inspiration to them.

When Terence died by suicide, his loss was enormous and the implications were terrifying. Terence was viewed as a role model, as an example of someone who had everything. If he could die by suicide, what did that mean for the many people who looked up to him.

“When you see someone like Terence, if you’re someone who’s struggling — and you look at this guy who has gone away, he’s playing hockey, his brother’s gone away, he’s kind of living the good life,” Clark said. “If he’s doing this, what about me?… What about my life?”

Clark said the cemetery in Rankin Inlet has so many headstones of people lost to suicide that she has stopped visiting.

“I just couldn’t face it anymore,” she said. “I didn’t want to look at those names anymore because it’s too hard to think, what else could we have done?”

Jordin, with Siena in tow, returned to Nashville on Feb. 2 to drop the puck for a game between Roman Josi’s Nashville Predators and Jamie Benn’s Dallas Stars. (Steve Roberts / USA Today)

Behind a steel door at the Rankin Inlet Healing Centre, a young man sat on bed beneath a long narrow window, a well-worn book at his side.

He’d been sent to solitary after getting into a fight with another inmate at the men’s correctional facility that sits on the edge of the town.

The man had recently returned after finishing a sentence of two-years-less-a-day. He was a recurring character at the Healing Centre, like many who find more support and shelter within the justice system than they can on the outside.

As the door to the concrete cell opened, the man jumped up and rushed forward to greet a guest he’d hoped might stop by.

“Hey, Jordin!” the man said, reaching out his hand to greet Tootoo. “They told me you were coming!”

Tootoo clutched the man’s hand as they shared an extended greeting. The man smiled wide.

“I was just reading your book,” the man said, looking back at the paperback on the bed. Tootoo signed the copy for him.

“Take it one day at a time,” Tootoo wrote.

Kusugak, the Miners coach and the facility’s program director, told the man he could keep the book he’d borrowed from the centre’s library. The man smiled wider, and held it against his chest.

“You take care of yourself,” Tootoo said.

“Eh,” the man agreed.

“Get on the right path,” Tootoo said. “I know it’s hard.”

“Eh,” the man nodded.

He looked back down at his book as Tootoo left and the steel door closed.

“All the Way” was written while Tootoo was still playing in the NHL — a rarity for tell-all memoirs. But it carries a message that Tootoo felt he needed to share, even though his career wasn’t over. The book sent a shockwave through Rankin Inlet, revealing a raw look at the turmoil the region’s most famous athlete endured.

On the day Tootoo visited the Rankin Inlet Healing Centre, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. He offered an official apology for the “colonial” and “purposeful” mistreatment of Inuit people through a mid-century government policy that separated tuberculosis patients from their families, moving many to sanatoriums in the South to receive treatment — most never to return. Families weren’t told where their loved ones were, or even if they had died. It was one of several government policies that dehumanized Inuit people in Canada for decades — like the residential schools, the punishment of children for speaking Inuit languages, and the forced relocation of entire communities to faraway regions to assert Canadian sovereignty in the North.

But an apology for past misdeeds doesn’t fix the ones that continue. Uja Karetak, the program counselor at the Rankin Inlet Healing Centre, noted many of the challenges that persist, including water boil advisories, like one in Whale Cove that’s reached beyond a year, overcrowded homes, poverty, substance abuse — and suicide.

While funding and support for suicide prevention initiatives have increased in Nunavut over the last decade, the territory’s suicide rate remains nearly nine times the national average, according to some reports.

“It boggles my mind the issues we deal with in the North,” Karatek said. “There are so many contributing factors.”

While the Healing Centre tries to provide mental health resources through local counselors like Karatek and visits from community elders, she says other correctional facilities in Nunavut have very few.

Later that day, Tootoo met with more than two dozen inmates at the Healing Centre — all dressed in matching grey sweatshirts and sweatpants — who gathered around him in a recreation area outside of their cells.

“All of you know I grew up in Rankin here,” Tootoo said. “I know a lot of you can relate to growing up in the North and what it was like, and all the adversity and challenges we face.”

He told them the story of his life; a story he tells often now — one that he’s dedicated to sharing, specifically with Indigenous people who have faced many of the same struggles.

“Growing up in Nunavut in our isolated communities you learn to become strong,” Tootoo said, as several men nodded.

He spoke about alcoholism and the toll it took on his life, and about his pursuit to make it in hockey, even though no Inuk player had reached those heights before.

“My brother told me as a young teen, you’re going to be the first one. My brother paved the way for me. He was my guidance,” Tootoo said. “Unfortunately, in 2002, Terence took his own life by suicide. … It rocked not only my life but a lot of people in our territory. With suicide, you never know all of the answers.

“We all fight a fight that no one else knows about.”

Tootoo told the men about his spiral into alcoholism while coping with his brother’s death and at the same time achieving his NHL dream. He grew up learning to suppress his feelings, he said — and the booze helped keep them down.

“I grew up being a tough guy,” Tootoo said. “No tough guy shows weakness.”

He told them about how he’d managed to change the cycle of his life. How he quit alcohol, leaning on friends who could relate to his battle.

“I’m just a kid from Rankin Inlet,” Tootoo said. “Be proud of who you are and where you come from. … This is a chance for you to change your life.”

Tootoo—pictured here with his wife, Jennifer, and daughters Avery and Siena—is a much softer dad than he was player. (Courtesy of Jennifer Tootoo)

In the crowded living room inside his childhood house, Tootoo cradled his 1-year-old daughter, Avery, while 3-year-old Siena played nearby.

His mother, Rose, fixed up her famous Ukrainian perogies on the stove while his father, Barney, searched the couch cushions for the TV remote — before turning on a game between the Maple Leafs and the Oilers.

Jennifer Tootoo, Jordin’s wife — a friend since they were teenagers; they married in 2014 — joked with him about being an adoring, deeply concerned father, and for going through way too many baby wipes and diapers. Fatherhood has changed his life, Tootoo said. His family means everything.

The old house is cluttered and busy, especially with Jordin’s young family moving in for a week, not to mention all the friends and family who continually drop in to see them. But it’s also very much the same as it was when he was growing up. The same over-heating kitchen light hangs from the ceiling, cooking anyone who stands beneath it. The walls are lined with dozens of team photos and portraits that chronicle the story of one brother whose story ended in youth, and the other that stretched on to fulfill the dream they shared.

Rose and Barney are still there too. She perfected her perogies and playfully bantered with her son, who gave her a tough time about the light that made everybody sweat. Barney mostly ignored everyone in the room, preferring the game on television — but he later perked up to tell stories about wrestling beluga whales off the coast of Hudson Bay.

When Tootoo first went public about the difficulties he faced growing up, he was met with a tense silence from home. Although many families face similar circumstances, Tootoo said, very few discuss their problems openly.

“Everyone looked at our family as being [up] on a platform, on the outside, but on the dynamics, here we shut the curtains, close the doors and it’d be hell,” he said. “I don’t blame anyone. This is how it is.”

He continues to share his story in hopes of helping as many people as he can. Something he plans to do even more now that he’s retired.

“We all talk about the dynamics of growing up in the North, and suicide prevention and mental health. Those are huge epidemics in our remote communities,” Tootoo said. “No one ever talks about it. … For me it’s about stopping one cycle and starting a new cycle. I’m not the one who knows it all, but our people can relate.”

The response, Tootoo said, outweighed any negatives in sharing his story. Knowing what life had been like in their family helped others see that their situation was not that different. Discussing that reality is a step toward healing, he said.

“Everyone in the community was like, we need that,” Tootoo said. “We need our people to hear.”

In the years since Tootoo’s book was first published, the friction with his family has eased, although they avoid discussing the past. Rose no longer drinks. But the family is still healing and growing, Tootoo said. Terence’s ashes are still kept at the house.

The spotlight of the tournament sparked renewed memories of Terence, and that has been hard on the entire family. Rose and Barney have had a particularly difficult time. But Tootoo tried to reinforce to his parents the importance of honouring his brother’s life and telling a story that might help save others. And as difficult as it was for them, Rose and Barney stood at centre-ice and dropped the puck for the faceoff during the tournament’s opening ceremony.

Jordin Tootoo, left, and his opponent Stephane Nukapiak took the honorary puck drop from Jordin’s  parents, Rose and Barney, at the opening of the Terence Tootoo Memorial tournament. (David Kakuktinniq)

“It’s a celebration of his life,” Tootoo said. “It’s his legacy.”

With another game for the Miners scheduled that night, Tootoo finished up some perogies, kissed his girls — then put on his jacket and boots. He walked through the same mudroom door he used to follow Terence through, tracing the same path across the garage and out into the cold night. Tootoo, boots crunching in the snow, made his way to Troy Aksalnik’s truck, idling to take him to the rink.

Soon, the tournament over, the Miners charged onto the ice after beating John Voisey and the Jr. Canucks All-Star team in a final that featured 8 goals and many more curse words. The players hoisted the trophy and paraded around like they’d won the Stanley Cup. It would be their last contest in the Singiituq Complex; the old arena will soon be replaced by a new facility just down the road. When things calmed down, Tootoo took the mic and thanked the fans for packing the rink and cheering and jeering. And beneath the #22 sweater that hung in the rafters above him, Tootoo remembered the one he’d followed.

“We all know that my brother Terence is looking down on us,” he said, his voice echoing through the arena. “We’re thankful for this chance to carry on his legacy.”

With a storm rolling in across the tundra, players and fans rushed to pack up their snowmobiles for the long journey back to places like Whale Cove and Arviat, hoping to beat the blizzard home.

And across the street from the tiny house where Tootoo grew up, a young boy fired pucks against a garbage bin beneath a street light. Crack, thud … crack, thud … crack, thud … into the night. Just another kid from Rankin Inlet, following the path of someone who went before.

(Top photo: David Kakuktinniq for The Athletic)