But winning the three consecutive provincial titles, the OCN did what no Manitoba team has done since the 1970s - since before Perry Young was born, since the days when two nations were segregated in The Pas cinema, since the time of Helen Betty Osborne.

Once an easy target for racists, the Cree Nation is now home to a feared champion. They are on top of their province, and want to show it in a new way.

After the season, Kerry Clark quit to take a job in the Western Hockey League. The Blizzard promptly recruited a new coach, Glen Watson, from the WHL and told him to win the championship yet again.

He will have to do so without Terence Tootoo, who has graduated from the junior ranks, turned pro and gone even farther south to the Roanoke Express of the East Coast Hockey League.

But remarkably the Blizzard's Cree stars all turned down offers to move to stronger leagues. They prefer to stay with a native-owned team, playing on native land, most likely dreaming of yet another title. It is hardly an impossible dream, considering that this season the team is off to the best start in its history - 20 wins and just one loss going into Friday night's game against the Dauphin Kings.

And the fans had nothing less in mind when they packed the gravel parking lot outside the Lathlin arena for a tailgate party before the season opener. As barbecues crackled, and beer flowed freely, people from The Pas and OCN mingled as if there had never been a divide between them - as if there were no Saskatchewan River, just 100 metres away, separating one community from the other.

The mayor was there, along with the chief, and on the bridge over the river a long line of cars travelling from the town to the reserve, to an arena both call their own.

THE END 
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