Jordin Tootoo's Experience Through Life In The Book 'All The Way'

Emily Ferris

Ms.Taylor

NBE 3U

June 2nd, 2023

Skating Over Obstacles

Jordin Tootoo’s Experience Through Life in the Book All The Way

Out of the 7623 players who have been in the NHL since it started in 1917, only 80 of those players were indigenous, which is only one percent. In the book All The Way, Jordin Tootoo provides information and writes about his experience through life as the first Inuit NHL player, encountering plenty of hurdles that threatened his path to success. He overcomes barriers, undergoes grief from the loss of his brother, alcohol addiction, and racism, and ultimately achieves success. In addition, an individual demonstrates resilience, hard work, determination, and never giving up in order to overcome stressful barriers,

Players on opposing hockey teams would make racist comments after losing a game to him, shouting “Go back to your fucking tribe.” (Tootoo 211) and “Go back to eating your fucking beluga whale, you meat head.” (212). In addition, his classmates at school constantly pick on him and shout things like “Hey, Eskimo, go back and live in your igloo where you belong” (36), Being picked on regularly has a negative impact on his mental health and makes him feel depressed, stressed and worried. Jordin always felt different from everyone else, he grew up different, looked different and had different and more complex struggles than others around him. Being the first Inuit hockey player was tough, he played more aggressively than everyone else, everyone would always be looking at him and judging him and he felt eyes were always on him. Players on other hockey teams would always center him out and make him feel uncomfortable. Jordin deals with discrimination due to his Iniut heritage, however, he does not let what others say define him, he is proud of who he is and uses their hurtful words as motivation to show his worth on the ice and as a person. This is a consistent struggle for him, therefore in order to move beyond this, he chooses to carry on in disregards to further comments and refuses to let this undermine him and define who he

He has always been a heavy drinker but did not think much of it because of how he was raised and grew up with alcoholic parents. Substance abuse becomes a substantial problem for him, it forms unhealthy habits and makes him act out of character while under the influence and later results in him being forcibly cut from the team if he does not choose to attend rehab. Jordin was not content with these circumstances but he recognized this as a problem and knew something had to be done. Jordin was always open and honest about his addiction, “I’m going to rehab,” Jordin exclaimed, “I’m in fucking LA, I’m going to a facility.” (151), no one seemed to believe him, people were just so surprised and caught off guard by the news. He was cut off from the rest of the world for the month he spent in the facility and when he returned he felt much better as a person. He works on maintaining his sobriety and occasionally attends support groups for a little while after his return. He “never was really tempted to start drinking again” (168) Jordin