Former National Hockey League coach of the year and Garden River First Nation product Ted Nolan will be featured in a documentary that's slated to air nationally on TSN's SportsCentre this Friday.
In a trailer for The Unwanted Visitor, Nolan speaks candidly of his time behind the bench, and how racism and discrimination affected his career.
"I've always felt unwanted - unwanted visitor in the game, and that feeling of what racism really feels like, what prejudice really feels like," said Nolan in the trailer, which appears on the TSN website. "And people can assume what it feels like, but unless you live it and you smell it and you see it - you don't know what it's like."
In an alternate trailer, Nolan unpacks his Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year, recounting how he threw the trophy down a flight of stairs in anger.
"I threw it down the stairs when I got it. I wish I could be proud of it...it took me a long time to even take it out of the box," Nolan said.
In 2017 and 2019, The Ted Nolan Foundation donated $100,000 to Sault College and Algoma University respectively to establish The Rose Nolan Scholarship, in an effort to help First Nations women achieve their educational and training goals while maintaining strong community involvement.
The foundation has provided over 250 scholarships to First Nation women across Canada since 2004, according to a biography found on the Three Nolans hockey skills development camp website.