(NewsNation) — The Minnesota Wild made NHL history on Friday, with three announcers broadcasting the team’s game against the Colorado Avalanche entirely in Ojibwe.
Ojibwe is an indigenous language of the Algonquian family spoken by the Anishinaabe people in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada, according to the NHL. The broadcast was carried out in celebration of Native American Heritage Day.
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The team shared clips of the broadcast on X, with Maajiigoneyaash Jourdain, Ombishkebines Gonzalez and Ginoonde Buckholtz seen cheering the team on to a 3-2 win. Jourdain told the NHL he grew up playing hockey as a child in Lac la Croix, Ontario.
“Finally made it to the NHL, but in a different way, using the voice of the Ojibwe people,” he said.
Fans applauded the broadcast online, including those who don’t speak Ojibwe, with one person writing, “This is so cool and needs to happen more often.” Another fan wrote they “hope more NHL teams do this.”
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