Cole Redhorse Taylor remembers the evening of Nov. 24 well. It was Native American Heritage Day, and Minnesota Wild goalie Marc-André Fleury said he would wear the goalie helmet designed by Taylor, a Mdewakanton Dakota artist, for the game that evening.
This was an especially touchy topic because the NHL technically bans players from wearing "specialty jerseys or masks" for themed evenings and said it would fine Fleury. But Fleury said he was going to do it anyway — he wanted to honor his wife, Véronique, who is Indigenous and from Canada.
"[The NHL is] being racist without actually saying that they're being racist," Taylor said. "The reason for that is that they are saying it's political to acknowledge Native people. It's literally just acknowledging the original people of this area because we have been shorthanded on everything."
Although Fleury wore the helmet only during warmups — another goalie played that evening, and the Minnesota Wild lost 3-2 to the Colorado Avalanche — the helmet, and Fleury's defiance of NHL's rules, went down in history.
To acknowledge and commemorate this, the Minnesota Historical Society purchased it at auction for $35,100. Proceeds will support the Minnesota Wild Foundation and American Indian Family Charity.
Taylor was chosen to create the helmet design and immediately knew that he wanted to include Dakota floral designs, which are in his tribe's traditional artwork and aesthetics as well. The helmet was painted by Shell Shock Designs.
"What was really important for me was that it says 'Mni Sota Makoce,' which is the traditional name of this land," he said. "It translates to 'the land of the cloudy or misty waters.'"
Marc-André's last name, Fleury, means "flower."
Fleury was aware that he wasn't allowed to wear the helmet, but he offered to pay whatever fine the league would levy, according to ESPN. Apparently, the NHL did not follow through with its threat to fine him.
Minnesota Wild posted the helmet and the story on its X account (formerly Twitter), including Taylor's reveal of the helmet to Fleury at the rink.
Taylor was a Native American Artist-in-Residence (NAAIR) in 2018.
The Minnesota Historical Society has no immediate plans to display the helmet, which is still undergoing inspections and preservation measures.
After the purchase, Fleury met with Minnesota Historical Society staff.
"He said it was a real honor to wear the mask," said Angelica Maier, MNHS' curator of 3-D objects. "Our [Native American Initiatives] team members presented him with a gift for standing in solidarity with Native people — they gave him a T-shirt that has a design for our Native American undergraduate museum fellowship program and also some braided sweetgrass as a sign of thanks, which I think really touched him.
"It was a really great moment of all this coming together, and thinking about the future of Minnesota and Minnesota history."
