In the novel Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese the protagonist Saul Indian Horse faces many battles throughout the duration of his life. In the beginning he is removed from his family and culture and put into residential school, one of canada’s darkest corners. While attending residential school Saul faces many tragic experiences, these include rape, abuse, dehumanization, and more horrific things no person should ever be put through. Residential school was a double sided sword for Saul, although the things that he experiences are traumatic, he also found hockey. Hockey is Sauls outlet, his thing he really connects to in his life. While he’s on the ice nothing else matters, not his skin colour, not his fear of being alone with no family, nothing seemed to matter except the strides beneath his feet carrying him across the ice. Saul dedicated his time to bettering himself at the sport. His hours were consumed with training and practicing which soon lead him to be good enough to get him a pass out of residential school. Fred Kelly came and brought Saul to his home on a reserve in Manitouwadge. Saul then played for the Moose, the town team. All the boys on the team were First Nations just like Saul, just a lot larger in size. The other Moose used their size to better Saul, making him work harder than he ever has to get the puck and skate the play. Eventually Saul was the star on the Moose, they started playing against tougher town teams. The town teams belittled the Moose, whether they won or lost spitting racist comments at them and abusing them. Eventually all of the hate that hockey originally took away for Saul came swinging in a full force through hockey. Saul feels like he has lost everything. He can no longer escape the hate so he turns to a bottle hoping to drown out and dim down all the hateful things anyone has ever said to him.