Great book

Jordin Tootoo's All The Way My Life on Ice was a truly inspiring book. He showed many hardships about his life and how he got through them. The book teaches us that anyone can do what they want with some hard work and dedication.

Strong/Tough

I believe there's a difference between strong and tough. Strong is when you work out at the gym to build your size and strength up. But tough comes through how you grew up through physical and mental problems. Jordin grew up and faced a lot of challenges. Both physical and mental. I believe that this helped him with making it to the NHL. In my mind being tough rather than strong in my mind will get you further in life. Because just being big and muscular won’t solve all of your problems. For example when a family member dies being muscular isn’t going to bring them back or help you carry on with life. You have to be mentally strong. “It’s not about how hard you can hit, It’s about how hard you can get hit and get back up”

Problem

Jordin started drinking more and more after his brother died. When he moved down to the states he used women to get his mind off of his brothers death. Drinking became a problem but he didn’t see it like everyone else did. He thought that it didn’t affect his game but everyone else saw that it did. When Jordin realized that he was drifting away from the NHL world and the team manager told Jordin if he didn’t get help for his drinking he was going to be off the team. At that moment Jordin realized that he had a problem. He could tell his level of play was going down and couldn't keep up on the ice. Jordin got himself help and his level of play was better than ever before. After his team mates went out and came out he could see what drinking did to your level of play. They just couldn't do what you can do when healthy. Realizing his problem i believe was a big game changer for him and put him on a whole different level.

Strength is Not Earned, but Learned

The thing that most impressed me about Jordin, and most showed his strength of character was how he apologized to everyone he had affected with his drinking, starting as soon as he left rehab.

To take on a process like that, considering the sheer number of people he had partied with, and subsequently alienated, was nothing short of brave.  And it took him two years. That is a long time. To have all of that guilt waying on you, to continue to do it, search out people and apologize for two whole years, is nothing short of amazing. I'm 100% sure nothing but sheer will and determination got him through that.

His strength in body was apparent throughout the entire book, but his strength in mind and conviction revealed in the last sevtion of the book is truly overwhelming. After an entire book about hockey with terms I didn't understand and violence that I did; with motives I didn't understand and vices that I did, I was suddenly given this vulnerable ending that I could understand from such a personal and emotional level that it burned.

Jordin Tootoo doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. But one day soon, I hope to have as much courage as him.

Kelly's Metaphors

When Jordin's drinking gets him to an epic level of uncontrollable douchery, his girlfriend and popular mucisian Kelly Pickler dumps him.

Now when I say "epic level of uncontrollable douchery", I mean really epic. He drank so much that whenever he had time to see her he was at 1/3 pickled. He slept around because one woman in his state of complete mental breakdown just wasn't enough to fill the void. He sunk so low in both common sense and common decency it was absolutely horrible for both Jordin and Kelly. She broke up with him and wrote a very boppy song with very pointed lyrics and a video where a man who looks like Jordin gets hit by a bus.

Though it is quite comical, to watch the video, I think maybe Kelly was getting at something other than silly revenge for how he treated her. Sure she must have wanted hin run over by a bus...but did the actual bus in the video, combined with her lyrics of certainty mean something more?

Did she perhaps mean that Jordin's lifestyle would one day run him over just like the bus in the video? Was she trying to say something about Jordin's conscience or even his health? I suppose it doesn't really matter, as now he's turned his life around, but the video, if you ever get a chance to watch it, is good for a laugh.

Once a Happy Dream, Now a Painful Memory

With everything in Jordin's life looking up, and the suddenness of Terence's suicide, I thought the book was on it's way to the end.

I thought Terence's death would be enough for Jordin to spiral so far into darkness that he had to wake up or die. But I was wrong. As I read a little bit further, I realized it was only a stepping stone to Jordin's decent.

Jordin didn't feel the pain of suddenly losing his brother. He went numb. Pain would've made him reevaluate. Pain would've shocked him into thinking that maybe, just maybe it was booze that killed his brother and that he should stop.

But he went numb. He just felt lost so heart-breakingly lost that he drank more to numb the pain. His partying got more intense and so did his drinking. I thought Terence's words in his note would've made Jordin want to honour him and clean up enough to play to his fullest potential. They didn't. I thought maybe, just maybe, Terence's memory at least could pull Jordin out of his dangerous spiral downward. But that memory made him drink more. All he wanted was to forget. Forget the numb, forget his brother's expectations, forget that he might fail Terence again after he ha failed him so terribly the first time.

Jordin didn't want to be a good hockey player or to go the distance, not even for Terence. He wanted to forget.

Characters

Throughout this book you go through it all and your brain tosses and turns. It made me wonder when I heard all about the murders and why he would do it. The graphics in Just Another Indian are so much to handle and understand sometimes you just don't know what to think.  Not to mention as I read this book my beliefs really took a toll on the "everyone deserves a second chance". What I mean is you can only have a second chance for so many things, if you kill someone and it's an accident i understand. Once you kill like 5 plus people you don't get a second chance, you are messed up and need help. There is no turning back from that.  I think that Just Another Indian opens up your heart and feelings. The way he murders these poor innocent girls. If he finds a prostitute and they refuse to sleep with him he will get mad and kill them, or if they do what he asks he still turns around and kills them. As a girl its disheartening to see girls being used and manipulated in such a cruel way. You never know how you will feel next. Everything happened so fast and you try to keep up, but sometimes you just have to stop and re-read it. Anytime Crawford would explain what he did and reasons for it i would have to re-read it, because his wording and reasoning was so confusing.