Historica Canada Education Portal

This lesson is based on viewing the Heritage Minute, "Jacques Plante," which focuses on the 1959 hockey game when Plante wore the goalie mask that he invented.

After examining the "Jacques Plante" Minute, students will write opinion pieces and articles about Plante's decision to wear a mask. Students will also consider how his decision challenged notions of "masculinity."

Plante's decision to wear a mask challenged the social conventions of the time. Students will discuss how...

This lesson is based on viewing the Heritage Minute, "Jackie Robinson." Robinson was one of the great athletes of the century, and in 1946 he made history by becoming the first African-American player with the Montréal Royals. This marked the beginning of the end of the colour barrier in major-league baseball.

The main focus of this lesson is for students to discuss the nature of Robinson's courage, and write about someone who has shown similar courage or taken personal risks....

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos for Jeff Adams, Father David Bauer, Debbie Brill, Foster Hewitt,James Naismith, Lester Patrick, and the Brier. Each of these legends in Canadian sports history made major contributions to their sports, as did the founding of curling’s Brier. The legacies of these achievements and their impact continue to be felt today.

To increase student awareness of prominent Canadian contributions to the origin and development of...

This study guide is based on viewing the Footprint videos about Bobbie Rosenfeld, Barbara Ann Scott, Carling Bassett,Marlene Stewart-Streit, and Marilyn Bell. These athletes represent 100 years of major achievement by Canadian women in international competition. Their stories also provide an opportunity to examine the history of changing attitudes towards the participation of women in Canadian sport, and the social forces that shape these attitudes.

To develop an appreciation...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos for Teeder Kennedy, Wayne Gretzky, Maurice Richard, Marilyn Bell, Terry Fox, and Larry Walker. Whether carrying a puck over the ice, slicing through water, crossing continents or excelling at America’s pastime (baseball), these athletes are leaders in their respective sports. But what makes them icons of leadership is just as much a matter of what they did beyond the sports arena to change the way we look at ourselves as...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos for Tom Longboat and Steve Collins. Collins and Longboat are just two of the many Aboriginal athletes — others include Adam Rita, Ted Nolan, Owen Nolan, Bryan Trottier, George Armstrong, Waneek Horn Miller, Alwyn Morris, and Darren Zack — who have achieved major success in the international sporting world, despite the significant obstacles they had to overcome.

To increase student awareness of Aboriginal athletes’...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos for Newsy Lalonde, Howie Morenz, King Clancy, Maurice Richard, Teeder Kennedy, Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, Jean Béliveau and Foster Hewitt. A stick, a puck, a net. This is the game according to Ken Dryden; as Canadians, we have been weaned on it during "long northern winters uncluttered by things to do." Hockey has developed with the nation, and the country has changed with the game. These figures are the early pioneers of...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprints videos for Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Father David Bauer, Bobby Hull,Wayne Gretzky, and The Forum. Throughout hockey's history, though they are not presented in the Footprints, francophone players like Guy Lafleur, Mario Lemieux, Raymond Bourque, Jacques Lemaire, and Patrick Roy also made a significant contribution to the sport. Parents still watch their children skate around cold arenas before the sun is up and backyard rinks remain...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprints videos Ferguson Jenkins, Harry Jerome, Donovan Bailey, and the '96 4x100m relay team. These athletes are a source of national pride, but their achievements also hastened Canada’s confrontation with its past and present prejudices.

To increase student awareness of Black Canadian athletes’ contribution to Canadian sport; to study the history of Canada as the history of Black Canadians’ experiences; to encourage a critical...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprints videos for Miss Supertest, Gary Beck, Ian Millar and Big Ben, Steve Bauer, Donny Lalonde, Cliff Thorburn and Elfi Schlegel. World Champions come in all sizes, shapes, and horsepower. These athletes include two of the four twentieth century non-human entries into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Two world champions vaulted over bars - one as an equestrian show jumper and the other as a gymnast. Whatever the ring, road, or arena of...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprints videos for Lionel Conacher, Harry Jerome and Wayne Gretzky. Heroes are not made; they are born, and Canada has its own distinct breed. The athletes in this series are national heroes, not so much for how they transformed their respective sports (great athleticism is not synonymous with heroism), but for how they reshaped the Canadian landscape from a disjointed collection of communities into a people with a common history and...

This lesson plan is based around several Footprints videos: Normie Kwong, Russ Jackson, Ron Lancaster and Angelo Mosca. Watch the minutes with your students prior to conducting the activities.

The first Grey Cup game was played on a cold, blustery day in December 1909. The 1950 Grey Cup - The Mud Bowl - was such a mess that at one point a referee mistakenly thought a Winnipeg player was drowning in a puddle. Toronto's Exhibition Stadium was host to the 1962 Fog Bowl, a Grey Cup game...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos for the Edmonton Grads, Montreal Expos, Toronto Blue Jays and the World Series Championships, and the 1976 Canada Cup Team. The Edmonton Grads' astonishing record ended when they disbanded at the beginning of the Second World War. The conflict between East and West was as cold on the ice as off during the 1976 Canada Cup. The Toronto Blue Jay victory at the World Series helped to subdue ever-present concerns of American...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprint videos Torchy Peden, Whipper Billy Watson, Jack Kent Cooke, Northern Dancer, Sandy Hawley, The Calgary Stampede, Jack Bionda, Jimmy McLarnin, and George Chuvalo. Their names do not suggest athletic prowess: Washerwoman, Northern Dancer, The Baby-faced Assassin, Whipper, the unwealthiest millionaire, Torchy, Cowtown Stampede. But the moniker of these athletes and one sporting event are characteristically Canadian — apparent feebleness...

This lesson plan is based on viewing the Footprints videos for George Seymour Lyon, Marlene Stewart-Streit, Moe Norman,Sandra Post, and George Knudson. Canada, it has been said, is Scotland's revenge on England. Scottish immigrants formed the backbone of the nation's fur trade more than 200 years ago and our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald was also Scottish. Yet we have tended to forget the diversity of our earlier immigrants and the variety of our sporting history....