Mohawks the second name change for Hat High

Nor is the issue of the appropriateness of the Mohawk handle new.

Former Hat High student Suzanne Tripp launched a petition in 2015 to have the school change the name and, while belated, she welcomes the decision.

“I think it’s important because it’s a part of reconciliation,” said Tripp from Vancouver Island where she is a college student.

“I think the cultural genocide that Indigenous people have faced in Canada is still very much alive and active. The more ways we can pick it apart where we see it in our culture – such as football team names – even if it seems like a small fight, I think it’s important to call those things out.”

That 2015 petition floundered in the face of vocal opposition and the untimely death of one of its biggest supporters within the Medicine Hat School Division, says Tripp.

“One of our main supporters at the very end, superintendent Grant Henderson, passed away that summer so there was grief in the air and we were unfortunately unable to continue the effort,” said Tripp.

The motivation for the petition came after Tripp said she learned of the former Redskins moniker the school used and, while it might have seen as progressive at the time to change it, it still came from a lack of understanding of Indigenous culture.

Tripp says she doesn’t buy into the idea the school had such a drastic change of heart from calling the football team the Redskins to Mohawks.

“They were using the same kind of violent imagery, just toning it down a little bit,” said Tripp.

While the Hat High football team was called the Redskins, according to archival records, other teams such as the school’s basketball squad used the team name of Mohawks during the same time period.

The school’s female sports squads are called Kwahommie – Mohawk spelled backward.

The school has yet to pick a replacement name.

by Alex McCuaig

Mohawks the second name change for Hat High

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