![]() Her high school coach, John Ferroni, saw the potential Roque had and strived to create an environment where she wouldn't feel excluded. In high school, she made the boys' team - as a freshman. When she started playing organized hockey, there were no teams for girls, so she played with the boys instead. ![]() She would often play with friends on the rink that her dad built in their backyard. ![]() So growing up in Michigan and growing up playing hockey in that environment was obviously a really special thing."Īlthough her mother tried to get her into figure skating, Roque was drawn to hockey. "When you look at the grand scheme of things for Indigenous people playing hockey in the U.S., the numbers are obviously a lot less than that. "I would probably say one in four, one in five people on my team were Indigenous growing up through high school," Roque said on the podcast. But hockey actually has roots in Indigenous communities, and Roque grew up in a hockey town in Michigan where a significant portion of the population was Native American. As a result, representation is low at the highest levels of the sport. Indigenous people face many cultural barriers - cost, accessibility, even prejudice - when it comes to getting involved in hockey.
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