Gino Odjick
Wayne Gino Odjick was a Canadian ice hockey left wing who played for the Vancouver Canucks, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal in the National Hockey League from 1990 to 2002 The Canadiens played for 12 seasons.
Odjick was born on an Algonquin Native reservation called Kitigan Zibi outside the city of Maniwaki, Quebec. His father, Joe, was born in Rapid Lake in 1939, his father, Basil, a trapper and fishing guide, was killed in France in 1944 during World War II, and his mother, Marie · Antoinette Marchand (Marie-Antoinette Marchand) has French ancestry. At the age of nine, Joe was sent to boarding school in Spanish, Ontario. The registration number he received at school was 29, which Odik later used throughout his career. Odjicks is the fourth child of Joe and Gisele and the only son of six children, after Debbie, Shelley, and Judy, and ahead of Janick and Dina; the Odjicks also raised several foster children , at least 32 years of age. Originally named Wayne, Odjick was quickly given the new name Gino when the family discovered there was another Wayne on the reservation.
Odjick grew up playing ice hockey, but it wasn’t until he was 11 that he joined an organized team run by Joe. [8] He participated in the 1983 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Championships with a minor hockey team from Maniwaki. Odike remained with the local team until he was 15, playing mostly against other teams in the reserve team and was often coached by his father. At this age, Odjick considered leaving hockey for other activities and accepted a tryout with the Hawkesbury Hawks, Ontario’s secondary youth team. While he’s been a defensive player thus far, Odjick quickly realized his skills weren’t good enough and switched to being an enforcer. It was at Hawkesbury that Odike first earned the nickname “The Algonquin Assassin”, a reference to his heritage and skills as a fighter.
He attributes the awareness and fighting skills of his defending team in part to racial tensions between Aboriginal people on the reservation and nearby citizens.
