Some kids in Winnipeg are going to be playing hockey with a stick once used by Jets' captain Blake Wheeler.

True North teamed up with Red River College to provide eighteen game-used sticks to the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre, which runs a learn-to-skate program.

The sticks had been damaged or broken, and were repaired by students in RRC's Aerospace Manufacturing Program as part of their cirriculum.

RRC president and CEO Paul Vogt says the sticks were repaired using the same techniques the school teaches to deal with composites in the aircraft industry. He says some of the sticks were broken right in half, and though he wouldn't go so far as to call them better-than-new now, he says you can't even tell where the breaks happened.

"When Byfuglien breaks a stick it's not a pretty sight," says Vogt.

Kevin Chief, who founded WASAC in 1999, says the gift sends a couple messages to the kids.

"By the college taking time to take something as significant as some of these sticks, you know, repairing them, gifting them over here, it not only sends a strong message that they want them to have a lot of fun and get involved in a lot of activities in our neighbourhood, but more importantly it sends even a stronger message that anyone should be able to have access and be able to go to college," says Chief.

Kiana Beaudry has been working at the WASAC camp for five years. She says the gift is huge for the kids.

"The kids are very excited to be able to have them and to hold them and to be able to use them for their upcoming programs. They're very excited, very stoked for it," she says.

The camp held an indoor ball hockey game yesterday as part of the celebration. Afterwards, the sticks were presented, and the kids gave dreamcatchers in return. The sticks are labelled with the names of the players who used them, and outside, while press spoke to Chief and Vogt, the kids started looking for their favourite players. They found names like Wheeler, Lowry, Copp, and Byfuglien, to list a few.

"I think it will be something memorable for me... These hockey sticks, I will keep them safe, they will be with me," says young Maleyk Bighorn.