He had won the Vanier Award as one of Canada's "Five Most Outstanding Young Men," for his work as a public relations officer and recreational director for the city.
After attending law school, Kiviaq was the first Inuk to become a lawyer, and was responsible for several important advances in establishing the legal rights of Inuit.
He was called to the bar in 1983,[4] a moment recognized in a letter from then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as a "solid and progressive achievement in the history of your people."
In September 2000, Mr. Ward made the initial application to change his name back to Kiviaq, the single-word Inuktituk name that his mother and Caucasian step-father gave him at birth.
However, Kiviaq never played a regular-season game: before the season started, he had an accidental slip on the wet field which was followed by concurrent hits from three opposing players.