Carey Price’s Hockey Hall of Fame Plaque Honours BC Indigenous Roots
The famed Montreal Canadiens goaltender is a member of the Ulkatcho First Nation and is the 8th BC-born player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Carey Price joins a select few in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but even fewer from BC reach hockey’s greatest honour.
Inducted Monday night alongside former Vancouver Canucks architect Brian Burke, Patrice Bergeron, Keith Tkachuk, Cindy Curly, and Pekka Rinne, Price became the second BC-born goaltender inducted into the Hall, following in the footsteps of Sandon, BC’s Tiny Thompson, who was inducted in 1959.
A native of Anahim Lake, BC and a member of the Ulkatcho First Nation, Price is also just the eighth BC-born player to enter the Hall, receiving the honour for an illustrious career that saw him post a .917 save percentage through 712 regular-season NHL games with the Montreal Canadiens, advance to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final and win Olympic gold at Sochi 2014.
While his hockey accolades earn him Hall of Fame recognition, his plaque in the Hall of Legends in Toronto doesn’t list the teams he played for at first mention like most. Instead, it reads “A member of the Ulkatcho First Nation in B.C.,” a homage to how important his rural community and Indigenous background were to his career.
“It’s pretty cool to have an area that you’ve represented for years,” Price told The Athletic. “I still view myself as being an Anahim Laker even if I don’t live there anymore. I just think it’s important to be proud of yourself and your heritage, and to have goals and give everything you have to achieve them.”
Indigenous Roots Formative for Price
The Indigenous roots have been a formative piece of Price’s entire career, and came into focus during the Stanley Cup run, as well as during a time when Canada’s federal government reported the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the country began to further recognize the atrocities towards Indigenous people throughout history.
In an Instagram post in 2020, Price described his maternal grandmother as a residential school survivor who faced “social injustices” at school.
“The mistreatment and misplacement of First Nations peoples in America and Canada has echoed generations of poverty and substance abuse. These facts must also be brought to light,” the post read. “I am a firm believer in the victory of good over evil and change will come. In our house we will not see the colour of your skin but the character of your heart.”
