The Canadian Football League’s BC Lions will recognize Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation later this month with a special helmet.
The Lions will wear the helmet on Saturday, September 30, when they host the Ottawa REDBLACKS at BC Place Stadium. It will feature a logo on each side designed by Kwakwaka’wakw/Tlingit artist Corrine Hunt.
“I stylized the logo that brings the Indigeneity of B.C., the Indigenous roots here, and it is a reminder there’s another world that existed. We’re just discovering what that world was,” Hunt told BCLions.com last year.
Players on both the Lions and the REDBLACKS will wear orange ankle tape to mark the day.
“We are extremely proud to be hosting the Orange Shirt Day game for our second year to show our support on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation,” says Lions director of community partnerships Jamie Taras. “As an organization, we feel it is important to raise awareness for the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools and to engage with the Indigenous community in a positive way
September 30 was declared the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in 2021 in response to a call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. It’s meant to raise awareness of the damage caused to Indigenous people and communities by the residential school system in Canada and to honour the resilience, dignity and strength of survivors.
Before the holiday was officially declared by the Canadian government, September 30 was Orange Shirt Day, a grassroots campaign started by residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad based on her own experiences.
The Lions are providing the Indian Residential School Survivors Society a minimum of 350 free tickets and food vouchers so that residential school survivors and their families can attend the September 30 game. They’re also giving away shirts with Hunt’s logo and the slogan “Every Child Matters” to the first 10,000 fans, and donating $20,000 to the Orange Shirt Society.
There will also be an Indigenous vendor marketplace at the game, along with Indigenous drummers and dancers performing at halftime.
The Lions are selling T-shirts, hoodies, caps and toques with Hunt’s logo in their online store. All net proceeds will be donated to the Orange Shirt Society and the IRSSS.
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