Warroad Warrior
Ogichidaa
Minnesota passed legislation in June banning the use of Native American mascots and logos in public schools, but Warroad received an official exemption on December 15.
Hockeytown USA is home to the Warroad Warriors. Eight Olympic hockey players came from this community, including Henry Boucha [Boo-shay], a great-great-grandson of Chief Ay Ash Wash.
As a 10-year-old I had watched the 1969 state high school hockey championship game on a black-and-white TV when Henry Boucha took an elbow to the eardrum by an Edina player and he ended the game in the hospital. While in the Army, he played on the national hockey team and became the star of the 1972 US Olympics in Japan where they earned a silver medal. He played in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings and the Minnesota North Stars.
I met Henry Boucha when I asked him to sign my copy of his autobiography. His book, Henry Boucha, Ojibwa, Native American Olympian, details his early life playing road hockey with a duct-taped tobacco tin for a puck.
His description of my Great Uncle Ralph in the pre-Zamboni days at the old ice palace made me laugh in recognition.
Ralph Kling was the arena caretaker-manager. They used to call him “bear trap.” He had big feet, and wore those buckle up rubber boots. He always had a big fur hooded parka and when you saw him coming down the dimly lit street, he looked like a big bear (Boucha 2013:101).
I stopped watching hockey after January 4, 1975, when Dave Forbes of the Boston Bruins physically assaulted Henry Boucha, spearing him with his hockey stick, cracking a bone around his eye and leaving him visually impaired. The State of Minnesota v. Forbes was the first prosecution of a professional athlete in the U.S. for an alleged criminal act committed during a sporting event, and it resulted in a hung jury.
Most sports fans know of Henry Boucha because of hockey, but others knew him because of his involvement with the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media.
When the school district in Warroad received a letter of intent in 2014 from the coalition to sue for the use of its Warrior logo, Henry Boucha contacted board members directly to provide some historical context and his perspective on being a Warrior and what it meant in this community.
The Warroad school grounds are on land allotted in 1905 to Chief Ay Ash Wash’s son, Nay-may-poke, where white settlers had incorporated as the City of Warroad in 1901. Nay-may-poke gave his 160-acre allotment to the city with the agreement they build a public school where all children could attend, including Indian children. The city paid him $150 for his land and a two-story schoolhouse opened in 1907.
Discussion of a lawsuit over the logo had been dropped within weeks and Henry Boucha had been invited to sit on the board of the organization. You might never have heard of Henry Boucha before, but I bet you heard the use of a racial slur as an NFL team name ended in 2020. When that team came to play the Vikings in November 2014, Boucha addressed the protesters organized by the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media. His activism continued until his recent death September 18, 2023.
“My dad would have been pleased,” by the exemption granted under the new law, his daughter Tara Boucha told Laurel Latham in this week’s edition of the Roseau Times-Register. “He went to advocate to the tribes a few weeks prior to his passing.”
Henry Boucha, 1951-2023. Ogichidaa. His name translated into English is warrior. It doesn’t mean a person of violence or forceful ego but one who has experience, skills, and the willingness to sacrifice their self for the good of others.
Wow! This was incredible and fascinating. I love how your storytelling not just weaves in the history and present day prejudice, it actually makes you sit up and pay attention and want to do something about it. Henry Boucha... No I never heard of him. Thank you for bringing a piece of him here.
I wrote a paper about logos and the use of Native American logos for a public relations class I took in the early 1980s at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. The university’s logo was an Indian head and their tagline was Fighting Sioux. My professor was married to the hockey coach.
Thanks for sharing the story I was unaware of the history of the Warroad Warriors. Also, out of the loop that Minnesota had passed a state law banning the use of Native Americans as logos for high schools.