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Monthly Archives: October 2013

Josh Ho-Sang – a diverse star in the making

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Detroit Red Wings, Doug Gilmour, Hockeytown, NHL Winter Classic, OHL, Toronto Maple Leafs, University of Michigan

If you’re searching for diversity in hockey look no further than Windsor Spitfires right wing Josh Ho-Sang – a skating United Nations.

The Canadian-born 17-year-old’s  father is a black Jamaican of Chinese descent, his mother is Chilean with Russian and Swedish bloodlines, and is Jewish. It’s not unusual to hear Spanish spoken in the Ho-Sang household, where Chanukah and Christmas are celebrated.

“I’m kind of a jack of all trades,” he told me recently.

 Josh Ho-Sang (left) celebrates a goal.  (Photo: Tim Cornett, WindsorSpitfires.com)

Josh Ho-Sang (left) celebrates a goal.
(Photo: Tim Cornett, WindsorSpitfires.com)

Ho-Sang’s family roots are intriguing but his hockey potential is fascinating.Gifted with a dangerous blend of blinding speed and sick soft hands, Ho-Sang is a natural goal-scorer who scored an “A” rating among North American skaters on the NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary “Ones to Watch” list ahead of the 2014 draft.

He’s scored 8 goals and 7 assist for 15 points in 12 games this season for the Ontario Hockey League Spitfires, a pace that assures he’ll surpass last season’s 14 goals, 30 assists for 44 points in 63 games. More important, he’s improved his plus/minus from -23 last season to a +5 thus far this season.

Ho-Sang isn’t a household name in the United States yet, largely because the OHL only has three U.S.-based teams – Pennsylvania’s Erie Otters, and the Saginaw Spirit and Plymouth Whalers, both Michigan franchises.

But more U.S. hockey fans will likely get a glimpse of him when the Spitfires play the Spirit Dec. 29 outdoors at Detroit’s Comerica Park – home of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers – as part of the NHL Winter Classic festivities in Hockeytown leading to the main event: a New Year’s Day tilt between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs at the University of Michigan’s massive football stadium in Ann Arbor.

Ho-Sang is “very proud” of his diverse background, but says its only a part of who he is.

“I obviously try not to make it a race thing,” he told me recently. “But the biggest thing for me is the amount of kids I have the ability to inspire. Even around the rink, one of our Zamboni guys is of color and, I think, it was two weeks ago I had a really rough game. After the game he came up to me and said ‘You know, you’re doing us proud.'”

“Little things like that, and seeing little coloured kids, more kids coming to the game, that’s kind of what you play for,” Ho-Sang added. “I don’t just want to inspire kids of race. I want to inspire everyone.”

Ho-Sang is learning that it takes more than raw talent to succeed.

Ho-Sang is learning that it takes more than raw talent to succeed.

And the way Ho-Sang plays might inspire some NHL team to make him a high pick in 2014, according to Cyril Bollers, coach and president of Skillz Hockey, a Toronto-area-based youth hockey training and development program.

Wayne Simmonds of the Philadelphia Flyers, Joel Ward of the Washington Capitals, Chris Stewart of the St. Louis Blues, and NHLers-turned broadcasters Kevin Weekes, Anson Carter and Jamal Mayers are all Skillz alums.

Ho-Sang played on predominately-minority hockey teams coached by Bollers for several summers.

“Josh should be a first-rounder,” Bollers told me. “I think he’s one of the most gifted and talented kids in the entry draft. He’s very skilled with the puck, very talented with it. He stick handles the puck and doesn’t lose speed.”

When Ho-Sang played AAA minor midget hockey for the Toronto Marlies, former Toronto Maple Leafs legend Doug Gilmour, general manager of the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs, told The Toronto Star in 2011 that the youngster was “the elite of the elite.”

Former NHLer Warren Rychel, the Spitfires’ general manager, told The Star that Ho-Sang “gets you out of your seat.”

“I think of all the guys since I’ve been here – (Tampa Bay Lightning’s Steven) Stamkos, (Edmonton Oilers’ Taylor) Hall, (New York Islanders John) Tavares – he’s the deadliest I’ve ever seen one-on-one with a goalie. He puts pucks away like nobody I’ve ever seen at that age.”

Ho-Sang has an athletic pedigree: his dad, Wayne Ho-Sang, is a highly-regarded tennis pro in Canada. When Josh was a toddler, Wayne and Erika Ho-Sang gave him a tennis racquet and a ball, thinking he would someday follow in his father’s footsteps.

“He’d put the ball on the ground, take the racquet and stickhandle…I guess hockey made more sense to him than tennis,” Wayne Ho-Sang told The Star.

Josh Ho-Sang chuckles when he recounts the story.

“When they put hockey on (TV), it was the only time of the day I would sit still for three hours,” he told me. “They said when they put me on the ice, I didn’t want any help, I didn’t need any help. I don’t remember all of that, but from the stories that they told me, it seems like I was made to do it.”

Ho-Sang said that raw hockey talent helped him make a meteoric rise through the hockey ranks. But he realizes that it will take more than talent for him to succeed in the OHL and beyond. He understands that he’s still a work in progress.

“I have to learn how to use my gifts in the right spots,” he said. “When I was playing minor hockey, the hockey was more one-on-one, right? I would come up the ice faster than everyone, I was even stronger than the guys I was playing against, so I would just take it to the net and do my thing. But now you’re coming up the ice and they have two defensemen back or three guys back. So it’s pull up and make plays. I’ve had double coverage on me…you have to learn how to adapt.”

And Ho-Sang has had to learn to adapt off the ice, too. The life of a major junior hockey player is complicated. Players drafted by OHL teams move away from home and live with billet families during the hockey season.

In between home games, road games, practices, meetings and other team obligations, major junior players also attend school.

“I had a little bit of a tough time at school last year because the school I go to is difficult and it’s really different from the Toronto school,” he said. “Little things like balancing homework and hockey, and all that stuff, and trying to stay away from the stress on top of that. You have three assignments to do, and you have practice, and you didn’t play well the last game.”

He says he’s balancing school work and hockey work better in his second OHL season, thanks in part to sage advice from his general manager and his mom.

“One of the most important things my general manager said to me was ‘Josh, if you do well off the ice and around the ice, the ice will become easier,'” he told me. “Something my mom said to me, too: ‘If your mind is clouded with all the stuff around you, it’s hard to see on the ice.’ It’s so true. The more calm I am about everything going on outside the rink, the way better I see the ice.”

And that could be bad news for OHL goaltenders.

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Seth Jones scores first goal

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Nashville Predators defenseman Seth Jones notched his first NHL regular season goal Saturday.

Nashville Predators defenseman Seth Jones notched his first NHL regular season goal Saturday.

Congrats to Nashville Predators rookie defenseman Seth Jones for scoring his first National Hockey League goal Saturday night, a second period power play tally against goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and the New Islanders. 

“Oh, it feels unbelievable,”  the 19-yeaer-old Jones told The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville. “We worked the puck pretty well on the power play, and I got a good pass from Leggy (Predators center David Legwand), and I just kind of wound up and shot it and hoped for the best.”

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John Paris, Jr., and Uriah Jones: Two hockey generations paying it forward

11 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Atlanta Thrashers, Bryce Salvador, Chicago Blackhawks, International Hockey League, John Paris, Jr., Life University, New Jersey Devils, University of Toronto Varsity Blues

It’s rare in today’s way-too-busy world to receive a thank-you note – especially from a younger to an elder.

So John Paris, Jr., was pleasantly surprised and gratified when he recently received a message of appreciation via Facebook from Uriah Jones, thanking him for making hockey history.

In 1994, Paris guided the now-defunct Atlanta Knights to the International Hockey League championship and became the first black coach in professional hockey to win a title. Jones, an Atlanta native who works for the Chicago Blackhawks’ youth hockey program, wanted Paris to know what that feat meant to him.

Former Atlanta Knights Coach John Paris, Jr.

Former Atlanta Knights Coach John Paris, Jr.

“I just told him that his contribution to hockey and the things that he’s gone through is inspiring to me as a minority and aspiring coach,” Jones told me recently. “I just shot him a message of encouragement and just thanking him for being who he is.”

Jones’ note filled Paris with pride, all 5-foot-5 inches of him. He said he’s the thankful one for being remembered and being a role model for someone looking to make hockey a career.

“I should be thanking him because if he’s working within the (Blackhawks) organization regardless of whatever the role he’s in – if he saw me doing it and that pushed him to do it, the credit goes to him because he had enough gumption to get up, go out and get the job,” Paris told me.

It doesn’t seem like nearly two decades since he took the Tampa Bay Lightning farm team stocked with young players and seasoned veterans to the IHL’s Turner Cup, Paris said. And it didn’t feel like history in the making when the game clock hit zero and the Knights dispatched the Fort Wayne Komets 4 games to 2 to win the trophy.

“I wasn’t there to be the first black hockey in pro hockey, I was there because I was offered a position,” Paris told me. “What I realized afterwards was the significance of it. You look at (Barack) Obama, who’s president of the United States, and say ‘Well, we can do it.’ Later on, I realized I did open a door.”

But it was slow in opening. Paris, 67, grew up playing hockey in Windsor Nova Scotia.

Uriah Jones was inspired by Paris and aspires to  make hockey a career.

Uriah Jones was inspired by Paris and aspires to make hockey a career.

He played on teams in Quebec’s junior and senior league teams, and played nine games for the Knoxville Knights in the old Eastern Hockey League before shifting to coaching.

He became the first black head coach in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, piloting the Trois Rivière Draveurs and Granby Bisons. But coaching in Quebec – the province where baseball’s Jackie Robinson played before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers – and in the IHL wasn’t a walk in the park.

He was spat upon by fans, had coins thrown at him and the N-word spewed at him. Hate mail and death threats weren’t uncommon.

“There were no coaches I could look to for advice that were of my own culture,” he recalled. “When you’re new at something and people aren’t used to it, then they have preconceived ideas like ‘What’s a guy like that doing coaching?'”

But the abuse didn’t deter Paris. After winning the Turner Cup, Paris went on to coach the IHL’s Macon Whoopee, and later moved to piloting junior teams. Last season he coached the Omaha Lancers, an AAA Under 18 team.

These days Paris is living in Irving, Texas, penning his hockey memoir and developing a program to improve youth hockey coaching, and catching NHL games on TV.

He likes what’s transpired in the game after his historic championship: former Chicago Blackhawks forward Dirk Graham becoming the first player of African decent to coach an National Hockey League team and black players like Bryce Salvador of the New Jersey Devils and Jarome Iginla – formerly of the Calgary Flames, now of the Boston Bruins – having the captain’s “C” sewn onto their jerseys.

He enjoys watching an ever-growing group of minority players like forwards Wayne Simmonds of the Philadelphia Flyers, Nazem Kadri of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Emerson Etem and Devante Smith-Pelly of the Anaheim Ducks and defenseman P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens and Seth Jones of the Nashville Predators not only surviving but thriving in the league.

And Paris loves watching Kevin Weekes, David Amber, Anson Carter and others talking hockey on “Hockey Night in Canada,” NHL Network and NBC Sports, proving to audiences that minorities in hockey is the new normal.

“Kevin Weekes on TV has opened a whole vast new arena,” he said.

Paris hopes to see more coaches like the University of Toronto's Darren Lowe.

Paris hopes to see more coaches like the University of Toronto’s Darren Lowe.

Paris says the next phase is to get more minorities behind the bench and in the front offices of hockey teams. They have been few minority coaches in the NHL. Craig Berube, of Native American/First Nation roots, was recently named coach of the Philadelphia Flyers; Graham led the Blackhawks during the 1998-99 season; Ted Nolan, an Ojibwa Native American/First Nation steered the Buffalo Sabres from 1995 to 1997; and Darren Lowe, the first black to play on a Canadian Olympic hockey team, has coached the University of Toronto Varsity Blues since the 1995-96 season.

“I want more guys look at coaching instead of playing and looking at the executive side,” Paris said. “That’s just normal progression.”

And Paris hopes that Uriah Jones will someday be part of that progression.

Jones, 31, says he got hooked on hockey the minute he started playing floor hockey in Georgia. He eventually progressed to ice and played on suburban Atlanta’s Life University hockey team, a Division 3 American Collegiate Hockey Association club team coached by former Atlanta Flames goaltender Dan Bouchard.

He landed a job in the hockey development department of the Atlanta Thrashers, helping to grow the sport in the Peach State. But the job ended when the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and became the Jets.

Hockey may have left Atlanta but it didn’t leave Jones. After the Thrashers up and left, Jones packed his bags – for Chicago. There, he found work with the National Basketball Association Chicago Bulls on their equipment staff.

With the Bulls sharing Chicago’s United Center with the Blackhawks, Jones inquired through NHL headquarters in New York and friends in the hockey world about whether there were any job opportunities with the team.

The Blackhawks hired him shortly after last season’s player lockout.  To say that Jones is in hockey heaven working for the Blackhawks is an understatement.

“This is not a game for me – I eat, breathe and sleep hockey, I’m always talking it, it’s crazy,” he told me. “It’s what I do. It’s me.”

And that makes John Paris, Jr., happy.

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