Exclusive: Oshie Proud Of Ojibwe Roots, Holds Native American Heritage Close While Playing 16th NHL Season

The Capitals star goes 1-on-1 about growing up in Warroad, his first pow-wow and learning Anishinaabemowin as he learns more about his Native American heritage over the course of his NHL career.

ARLINGTON, V.A. — With a wide grin, Washington Capitals winger T.J. Oshie describes himself as the kid who never sat still.

He always had to be doing something — it's evident that's still the case as he fidgets and bounces his knee up and down while we're talking at MedStar Capitals Iceplex — so as a kid in Everett, Washington, his grandparents couldn't really get him to listen to stories about his Native American heritage.

"No matter what grandpa and grandma said, I had to be playing sports all the time," he reminisced with a smile. "It was the same with my Bible studies. I wanted to play basketball, so I went to that on Wednesday nights."

When long road trips, traffic and late ice slots eventually took a toll on Oshie and halted his development, his cousin, Henry Boucha, encouraged him to move to Warroad, Minnesota, to live with his father and coach, Tim.

Not only did Warroad open doors for Oshie with regard to his hockey career, but it also gave him a new sense of identity as he found out more about what made him, well, him.

Oshie's distant relative was a chief of Warroad, a small town that got its name from the war trail and years of battle between the Ojibwe and Sioux. Boucha was a full Ojibwe and introduced Oshie to his Native American ancestry with a naming ceremony in 2002.

"I wasn't fortunate enough to grow up in Minnesota. I didn't get all the lessons as a kid growing up with where their tribe is from and all of that. I didn't get to grow up going to pow-wows... once I moved to Warroad, I did," Oshie said.

Oshie got to experience his first pow-wow at age 15 and took a summer trip to Warroad to get a taste of what he was missing.

There, he sat on a blanket with his family on the floor of Boucha's house as a medicine man came to perform a naming ceremony for the rising hockey player. Most naming ceremonies take place when the participant is an infant, but Oshie was a special case. In a ceremony that featured a tobacco pipe and eagle feathers, Oshie got his Native American name: "Keeway Gaaboo," which fittingly means, "coming home." 

"It was the first time I was really brought into the culture and really appreciated where I came from," Oshie recalled.

After that, Oshie made the full-time move to Minnesota, and it opened several doors, not only resurrecting his hockey career and turning him from a work in progress to an on-ice sensation but also giving him an identity and teaching him more about his Ojibwe roots.

To this day, Oshie takes pride in representing the Indigenous community and blazing a path in the NHL. Before Zach Whitecloud, he was the most recent Indigenous player to hoist the Stanley Cup. Now, Oshie is inspired by his family to carry on that legacy and pride.

"One of the messages from my dad growing up all the way from my very first hockey practice was to be a leader on the ice," Oshie said.

The 36-year-old has also worked hard to stay in touch with his roots while balancing his career and family. In his free time, he's teaching himself Anishinaabemowin, the native language of the Ojibwe tribe, and also finding ways to immerse himself further into the culture.

"It's a tough language," he noted.

Technology also helped, especially with Oshie missing out on a lot of those stories passed down from ancestors due to his late move to Warroad.

"There's not a lot of documentaries and things like that you can really learn from. A lot of the history, from what I've learned, is oral history that's passed down from generation to generation," he explained. "I ended up going on YouTube and it was like PBS that had a bunch of shows on the history of the Ojibwe people in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So honestly, a lot of the stuff that I've learned about the provinces and all that stuff has actually been just from this little old PBS show."

At the end of the day, Oshie is proud to represent the White Earth Nation, and the plan is to keep it running in the family. His sports apparel company, Warroad, is also named after his hometown, with some of the proceeds going to the youth hockey program there.

November also holds a special place for Oshie, as it marks National American Indian Heritage Month.

His hope is to not only lead by example and inspire other Indigenous players but also to pass along what he's learned to his four children and the next generation in his family tree.

"I try to teach my kids some of the language and some of the history behind it," he smiled. "It's something that I'm proud of, and I do wish I was able to learn more of that as I grew up."