Tour an eye-opener for Wheat Kings

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This article was published 02/12/2016 (3240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every city has its problems.

But on Monday, a group of Brandon Wheat Kings had a chance to see some of Vancouver’s in plain sight and put a human face on them, an experience that left an indelible impression.

A group of seven Wheat King players, Brandonites Tanner Kaspick, James Shearer and Tyler Coulter, along with Garrett Armour, Logan Thompson, Jordan Papirny and Kale Clague, were accompanied by head coach David Anning and general manager Grant Armstrong as the team stayed in the city during their West Coast road trip.

As part of a program called Odd Squad Productions — a charitable organization that uses active and retired police officers and volunteers to deliver drug and gang awareness — the players were given a presentation and then spent more than three hours touring Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside on Hastings Street, the heart of an eight-square block area blighted by poverty, drug use and gangs.

“I think it kind of changed my outlook on life,” Shearer said. “Growing up in Brandon you don’t see anything like it. Going down there and getting a first-hand experience just makes you realize how important family and friends and everybody close to you are, and how staying on the right path and not getting dragged into anything is very important.”

The evening started in a boardroom, where they were given a presentation by police officers on different drugs and the effects they have on the body, followed by a discussion on gangs and gang life.

The players were on the street by 6:30 p.m.

Coulter called the tour a fascinating but scary experience because it was so out in the open. And he quickly learned how accurate the information they were given actually was.

“They told us exactly how the drugs affect people and the long-term effects are, and when you walked out on the street, that’s the first thing you saw,” Coulter said. “It was just dead on; everything that they explained was what you would see. I belive in the school system when we were taught, it wasn’t as real when you’re hearing it in a classroom in Brandon, Manitoba, as when you’re going out on the most dangerous street in Canada.”

Heroin use is endemic in the area, although it is being spiked with or even replaced with fentanyl, a drug that has caused hundreds of fatal overdoses.

Kaspick said the officers served a couple of important purposes during the tour, making them feel safe, while also encouraging the addicts to open up about their life experiences.

While the players had a chance to tour where some of the addicts live, they were most struck by the stories they heard from residents. The horror lay in how ordinary the junkies actually were.

“Most didn’t start in Vancouver,” Kaspick said. “We talked to one guy from the Yukon who went to go down for a weekend and he didn’t leave for 16 years. It’s pretty crazy how anyone can find their way there. There a lot of people from Winnipeg we talked to, all parts of Ontario, all across Canada basically that just kind of found their way there because of the affordability of the drugs there and how easy it is to get your hands on them. It’s pretty crazy.

“There were people with normal stories who went to college and did all that stuff and made one bad decision that led them to where they are now.”

Shearer said he was really glad he went on the tour, and is eager to share what he learned.

But like Kaspick, it was the individual stories that stayed with him.

“Every single person we talked to said they didn’t want to be there,” Shearer said. “It’s just the fact that they got into that lifestyle and now they can’t get out. It’s like their medicine and that’s how they deal with it. They need it to stay normal, they say. Every one of them said ‘If we could do it over again, we definitely wouldn’t start.’

“That was kind of the big message, and then another little message that we got from it is a lot of them had families and normal jobs and now a lot of them don’t know where their wife is or where their husband is or don’t see their kids anymore, or stories like that. They don’t have anything to do with their family because they got stuck in this life.”

Armstrong, who previously worked with the Victoria Royals before joining the Wheat Kings in August, has done the tour six or seven times but was struck by what we saw on Monday. He said it was the most interactive tour he’s been on, and the fentanyl threat drove home an added sense of the helplessness and resignation felt by the people who lived there.

Nevertheless, the junkies wanted people to use them as a cautionary tale.

“The addicts that we talked to said the message to be delivered is that we are so addicted we’re willing to die because we have no idea what we’re receiving,” Armstrong said. “It isn’t heroin anymore. It’s heroin laced with fentanyl and the fentanyl will kill us but we’re just so addicted it doesn’t matter.”

Anning and Armstrong kept a close eye on the players to monitor how they were dealing with the experience. Anning, who was also doing the tour for the first time, was struck by the stories he heard and the life lessons that were delivered.

He said the players were riveted by what they heard.

“You want to make sure that they’re comfortable in that setting and not overwhelmed,” Anning said. “But I think they were fully invested in hearing the stories of the people that they were talking to. They listened intently. They wanted to know that person’s story and understand how they got there and understand what’s being done in terms of aid and getting those people out of the situation they’re in. They obviously had a soft spot for the people they met.”

Armstrong said that when he picked up the players on Tuesday morning, it was still all they were talking about.

The Wheat King players are eager to share what they learned in classrooms when they return. None want to see it back home.

“I think this is something that I will remember for the rest of my life,” Kaspick said. “If anyone gets an opportunity to do it, it’s pretty educational and really eye-opening. It goes to show where the path of a bad decision can lead to. It’s definitely something that I want to take back to Brandon and hopefully get the message across to students in my city.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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