TheColorOfHockey

~ Hockey for Fans and Players of Color

TheColorOfHockey

Monthly Archives: March 2014

Powerade commercial’s black hockey player powers through tough times

23 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Des Moines Buccaneers, Frozen Four, Harlem Nights, Jonathon Robinson, March Madness, Saskatoon Blades, Swift Current Broncos, USHL, Washington Capitals, WHL

Jonathon Robinson has been religiously tuning into the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament on television looking for ice hockey.

No, the 20-year-old San Diego native isn’t confusing this month’s basketball fest with next month’s NCAA Frozen Four hockey tournament.

He’s been checking out the basketball games to see if a television commercial that debuted during last year’s March Madness and featured him playing hockey is airing again during this year’s tournament.

Jonathon Robinson calls TV commercial one of the best moments in hockey career.

Jonathon Robinson calls TV commercial one of the best moments in hockey career.

Robinson was the black hockey player in an ad for Powerade, a Coca-Cola brand sport drink, that generated a lot of buzz last year for challenging athletic and societal stereotypes. The 31-second spot featured quick cuts of athletes seemingly against type: a smallish basketball player going strong to the hoop; a slow defensive football player attacking a quarterback; and a female wrestler preparing to do battle against a male opponent.

Then there was Robinson, who skated towards the camera with his white teammates and asked whether he was “Not in the right sport?”

A year after the commercial premiered, Robinson remains thrilled that he had the opportunity to be in it and proud of the message – beyond selling a product – that the ad tried to convey.

“By saying those few lines and just the whole message of the commercial, it really  meant a lot more special to me than the normal guy would actually understand,” Robinson told me recently. “It was one of the best things that ever happened to me mainly because of all of the things I’ve been through with hockey.”

Robinson’s pursuit of a hockey career has taken him from California to Washington, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Atlanta, Coquitlam, British Columbia, Des Moines and back. He’s been through an alphabet of leagues – the British Columbia Hockey League, the North American Prospects Hockey League, the Western States Hockey League, the Tier 1 Elite Minor Midget Hockey League and tryouts with Western Hockey League and United States Hockey League teams.

At 14, Robinson was an 11th-round draft pick of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades in 2008. Doug Molleken, head scout for the Blades, told Canwest that he liked how Robinson skated and marveled how strong he was in with the puck in the corners of the rink.

“The had a hard time taking the puck away from him,” Molleken told the Canadian news service. “He’s gotta learn the game a little bit, but I think he’s going to be OK.”

But an injury kept him from competing in training camp, which helped launch his search for a hockey home. He had a 2011 tryout with the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos.  At 20, he finished the 2013-14 season playing for the WSHL’s Lake Tahoe Blue and now finds himself at the crossroad of his hockey career.

Robinson, skating for Lake Tahoe Blue, has been on a multi-city, multi-league hockey journey.

Robinson, skating for Lake Tahoe Blue, has been on a multi-city, multi-league hockey journey.

Robinson put his hockey dreams on hold in 2012 after he father, Rick, suffered a series of stokes. He moved from California to Arlington, Va., to help provide for his family while his father recovered.

“I had two jobs, I was a lifeguard and I was also cleaning grocery stores,” he said. “The stores were in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. I would leave the house around 5 a.m., start working around 6 a.m. and get home around 7:30 at night.”

Whenever he had time, Robinson tried to stay in hockey shape by attending stick and puck sessions at Virginia’s Kettler Capitals Iceplex, the practice facility of the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals.

Robinson temporarily halted his hockey career when dad suffered series of strokes.

Robinson temporarily halted his hockey career when dad suffered series of strokes.

And it was a good thing that he did. In January 2013, Robinson received a phone call from a friend in California who told him about auditions for the Powerade commercial.

“The timing could not have been better,” he said. “The year before, I was playing in the BCHL, that was my draft year, and I had separated my shoulder and my dad had three strokes and five brain surgeries.”

When he arrived at the casting call, Robinson said he found about 25 other black hockey players and actors vying for the role.

“The audition was throughout the day,” he recalled.  “I got there first, I was the first person to audition, and I stayed a good hour after that just watching the other guys.”

But Robinson had a leg-up on the competition because of his family background in show business. His dad was a cinematographer and his mother, Dawn, was an assistant on the set of the 1989 Eddie Murphy movie “Harlem Nights.”

The early exposure to the film business helped Jonathon land a cameo role in an episode of the old NBC hit series “Friends” in which he kicked Ross – played by actor David Schwimmer – in the face.

About a week-and-a half after the Powerade audition, Robinson headed to Iowa for a

Robinson in Powerade ad.

Robinson in Powerade ad.

tryout with the USHL Des Moines Buccaneers. He received a callback for the commercial during the tryout with instructions to scurry back to Hollywood ASAP.

Elated, Robinson caught the next flight to California – leaving his hockey equipment behind in Des Moines.

“I left all my gear in the locker room of the USHL team,” he said. “I had to  borrow some gear from some owners of teams I knew.”

Robinson recalls spending 12 hours on the ice shooting the commercial at the Pickwick Ice Center in Burbank and doing about 40 takes on just one scene that required him to check an opposing player hard into the boards.

“I remember at the end of it the kid was dead, he was begging not to be hit anymore,” Robinson said. “We had a couple of takes where I was laughing because of something the director yelled out while we were filming.”

These days, Robinson is working on the Phase Two of his young life. He plans to enroll in college this summer to study cinematography. But hockey still isn’t out of his system. He hopes to coach or teach at hockey camps.

“I want to coach kids, youth hockey players, be able to bring them up, and help them chase their dreams,” he said.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

Terry Trafford, missing player for OHL’s Saginaw Spirit, found dead in parked vechicle

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Saginaw Spirit center Terry Trafford had been missing since March 3 (Photo/Saginaw Spirit)

Saginaw Spirit center Terry Trafford had been missing since March 3 (Photo/Saginaw Spirit)

Terry Trafford, a center for the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit who had been missing for more than a week, was found dead on Tuesday, team officials announced.

“It is with very heavy hearts that we announce that late this afternoon we were informed by the Michigan State Police that the body of Terry Trafford has been found,” the Spirit said in a statement on the team’s website. “Our deepest condolences are with Terry’s family and his friends both in Ontario and Michigan. Terry played on our team and was a member of the Spirit family for the last four years and he will be missed.”

Trafford’s body was found inside his vehicle at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Saginaw Township around 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to police. The cause of death wasn’t announced on Wednesday.

Trafford, a 20-year-old from Toronto, was last seen alive on March 3 at the Dow Event Center where the Spirit practice and play games. His girlfriend, Skye Cieszlak, told Michigan’s MLive.com that Trafford was distraught about being sent home by the Spirit because of team rule violations. She  told The Toronto Sun that the disciplinary action stemmed from Trafford allegedly smoking marijuana while on the road in Owen Sound on Feb. 22.

Cieszlak told MLive.com that she received a March 2 message from Trafford saying that “his life was over and that he didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Craig Goslin, the Spirit’s president and managing partner, confirmed to MLive that Trafford was sent home for breaking team rules. But prior to the team’s action, Trafford was living with Goslin and his wife, Karolyn.

Trafford played four seasons with the Spirit (Photo/Saginaw Spirit).

Trafford played four seasons with the Spirit (Photo/Saginaw Spirit).

“The reason that he was with us was that he needed some mentoring,” Craig Goslin told MLive. “We made sure we mentored the young man.”

Goslin added: “He’s a good kid that seems to make some bad decisions at times.”

Trafford played 54 games for the Spirit this season and tallied 8 goals, 24 assists and 70 penalty minutes. In four seasons at Saginaw, he registered 29 goals, 49 assists and 182 penalty minutes in 221 games.

OHL Commissioner David Branch said Trafford’s death “is a tragic situation for all involved.”

“On behalf of the Ontario Hockey League, our teams, players and staff, I want to express our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Terry Trafford,” Branch said in a statement released by the OHL. “We will work closely with the Saginaw Spirit to provide any support required to the players and staff during this very difficult time. In addition, all of our teams will be offering support to their players.”

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

Eddie Joseph, spreading the gospel of ice hockey in soccer-mad Great Britain

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

" Lee Valley Lions, Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, Hockey is for Everyone, Ice Hockey in Harlem, Wayne Gretzky

Being a black ice hockey player in Great Britain in the 1980s wasn’t exactly a walk in Hyde Park. Eddie Joseph can attest to that.

“I went to a place called Sunderland, near New Castle, I remember walking into the ice rink in Sunderland and a 10-11 year old little kid came up to me, rubbed my hand and said ‘Oh, it doesn’t come off,’  recalled Joseph, who played semi-pro hockey for the London Rangers and Lee Valley Lions. “That’s what the country was like. There were parts of this country where there were no black people at all.”

Times have changed in Great Britain, along with population demographics and

From player to coach, Eddie Joseph pays it forward with Lee Valley club.

From player to coach, Eddie Joseph pays it forward with Lee Valley club.

attitudes. When Joseph takes the racially and ethnically diverse East London youth hockey teams that he coaches on road games today people barely bat an eye.

“When I was playing, this country was very different – I was racially abused,” Joseph told me recently. “Today, it just doesn’t happen. People are so much more enlightened.”

Joseph didn’t envision it when he retired from semi-pro hockey at the age of 32, but he’s a hockey lifer. When he’s not carrying a night stick as a London Metropolitan police sergeant, Joseph is holding a hockey stick and coaching kids ages 10 to 18 and teaching them to love a sport that he says he owes everything to.

“It’s my passion,” said Joseph, 52. “Hockey has been the most constant thing in my life. I don’t know why the game bit me as it did, but it did.”

Joseph just wishes more folks on his side of the pond felt the same way. In the land of Big Ben, fish & chips, and One Direction, ice hockey is obscured by the large shadows cast by soccer, cricket, rugby, field hockey and tennis.

“To say it’s a minority sport is overplaying the word minority,” Joseph told me recently. “It’s such a small game in this country.”

Eddie Joseph, left, hopes his players grow up to teach their kids ice hockey.

Eddie Joseph, left, hopes his players grow up to teach their kids ice hockey.

With a population of nearly 64 million people, Great Britain has only 6,798 ice hockey players, according to International Ice Hockey Federation statistics. Of that group, 2,289 are men, 3,815 are junior players, and only 694 are female.

The IIHF ranks the country 22nd in the world in men’s hockey and 18th in women’s hockey. An IIHF founding member in 1908, Great Britain used to be a beast in ice hockey. Team Great Britain captured a Bronze Medal at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, a Gold at the 1936 games in Germany, and experienced international success with teams comprised mostly of Canadian-born players

But as Canada gained independence from the monarchy, Great Britain’s hockey prowess faded. It hasn’t had an ice hockey team in the Winter Games since 1952.

When Brits do think ice, most of them think figure skating, Joseph said. Robin Cousins, Tim Curry and the pairs team of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean brought Olympic Gold and notoriety to the country in recent decades.

“Ice rinks aren’t necessarily ice hockey-friendly,” Joseph said. “Figure skating is more popular here than ice hockey because over the years we’ve had success at that sport. Whereas with ice hockey it’s ‘What is it, who is it?'”

But that hasn’t stopped Joseph from preaching the gospel of hockey in his East London community and around the country.

Joseph returned to hockey when his son, then 10, said he wanted to play the game. Joseph went to the Lee Valley where his hockey odyssey began only to discover that the game was no longer played there.

“Hockey had pretty much died at the ice rink,” Joseph recalled. “I was fortunate that when I went back to the rink I met a lady there who was one of the rink directors. She said ‘Hockey would be a great idea.’ The rink manager wasn’t very keen, but she was one of the directors of the company that runs the facility.”

After receiving coaching training, Joseph started a hockey program with about 15 children once a week. Today, Lee Valley has about 125 hockey players spread over five youth teams and an adult squad.

About 25 percent of the players are minority – black, Asian, Arab and Jewish, Joseph said.

Eddie Joseph, standing center, instructs some of Lee Valley's young players.

Eddie Joseph, standing center, instructs some of Lee Valley’s young players.

The hockey program draws many of its patrons from the East London/Hackney area, historically one of London’s poorest communities. Spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on hockey equipment and ice time isn’t the first priority for most families in the neighborhood.

So the Lee Valley rink does what U.S. programs like New York’s Ice Hockey in Harlem, Washington’s Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, Philadelphia’s Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation and other non-profit NHL-affiliated “Hockey is For Everyone” organizations do and minimize the cost of the game for those interested in playing it.

“The people that walk through our door and want to give hockey a go can’t afford to buy the kit, can’t afford to buy skates,” Joseph said. “So what we, people with a like mind to myself, do is we’ve done fund-raisers, we’ve bought equipment so we can just say to kids ‘Here you go, you can borrow this from us.’ I think it doesn’t necessarily go down well with our hockey establishment here, but we are more akin to a charity than we are to an ice hockey club.”

Lee Valley youngsters against a team from Slough.

Lee Valley youngsters against a team from Slough.

Joseph can identify with the needy patrons. He was a 14 year-old boy in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood when he and some mates walked into the Lee Valley rink, saw hockey, and were instantly captivated by a sport they never knew existed.

“I grew up in one of the worst parts of London, if not the country. I had friends who were killed, friends who were in prison – it was that kind of area,” he told me. “And for some reason, they put an ice rink up in this place. It gave me something other than hanging around the streets. In my circles, I got to see our country playing hockey. It gave me a sense of pride, gave me some value, some worth.”

No one confused Joseph for the next Wayne Gretzky. Between 1984 and 1993, Joseph tallied 54 goals, 68 assists and racked up 271 penalty minutes.

“I was never a great hockey player, but I served a purpose on the team and they signed me up every year,” he said. “Yeah, I got a bit of a reputation for being a scrapper, nonetheless I wanted to play hockey.”

He hopes the rest of Great Britain will, too, someday soon.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

Skillz Hockey’s Cyril Bollers named to 2015 Canada Winter Games hockey staff

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cyril Bollers, Darnell Nurse, Edmonton Oilers, Josh Ho-Sang, Montreal Canadiens, P.K. Subban, Pittsburgh Penguins., Sidney Crosby, Skillz Black Aces

Cyril Bollers, president and coach of Skillz Hockey, has been named an assistant coach for Ontario’s Under-16 hockey team that will compete in the 2015 Canada Winter Games.

Cyril Bollers will help map X's and O's for Team Ontario at 2015 Canada Winter Games.

Cyril Bollers will help map X’s and O’s for Team Ontario at 2015 Canada Winter Games.

Bollers will help Team Ontario Head Coach Drew Bannister,an assistant coach for the Ontario Hockey League’s Owen Sound Attack, guide a squad of some the province’s best hockey players under 16 years of age at the Winter Games, which are held every four years.  David Schlitt, head coach of the Huron-Perth Lakers Minor Midget team, rounds out the Ontario hockey coaching staff.

The 19-event sport festival will be held Feb. 13-March 1, 2015 in Prince George, British Columbia. The games have been a showcase for some of Canada’s best athletes including Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby, Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos, and Canadian women’s hockey Olympic Gold Medalist Haley Wickenheiser.

“This is wonderful. It’s an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to have been selected,” Bollers said. “I’m just going to go out, try my best and make Ontario proud.”

Bollers is president and head coach of Skillz Hockey and associate coach of the Markham Majors Minor Midget AAA team in the Toronto area. He is one of the few coaches of color in organized hockey.

There currently are only two minority head coaches in the NHL – Philadelphia Flyers’ Craig Berube and Buffalo Sabres Ted Nolan, who are both First Nations. Paul Jerrard, who is black, served as an assistant coach for the NHL Dallas Stars last season. He’s an assistant coach this season for the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets, a Vancouver Canucks farm team. Darren Lowe, who is black, coaches the University of Toronto Varsity Blues men’s hockey team.

Bollers hopes to join their ranks in the not-to-distant future.

 Bollers hopes that he and the kids he's coached rise in pro hockey.

Bollers hopes that he and the kids he’s coached rise in pro hockey.

“After all the years of all the hard work, this is the opportunity that I was looking for,” Bollers said of the Canadian Winter Games appointment. “Once you get this opportunity you have to make the best of it and it could lead to other things.”

Between Markham and his Skillz Black Aces and Black Mafia teams, Bollers has coached a stable of players – minority and white – who’ve gone on to successful major junior hockey careers and positioned themselves to become NHL players.

Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds defenseman Darnell Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers first-round draft pick last summer, Kitchener Rangers forward Justin Bailey, a Buffalo Sabres 2013 second-round pick, and Bellville Bulls defenseman Jordan Subban, the Vancouver Canucks’ 2013 fourth-round pick and brother of Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban, all played under Bollers.

And more of Bollers’ former players are expected to chosen in the 2014 NHL Draft in Philadelphia this summer. Josh Ho-Sang, a forward for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires was listed as the 18th best North American skater in the NHL’s mid-term draft rankings last January; Brendan Lemieux, a forward for the OHL’s Barrie Colts and son of retired NHL player Claude Lemieux, was ranked 38th; Keegan Iverson, a forward for the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks, was ranked 64th; Owen Sound Attack forward Jaden Lindo was ranked 96th; and Colts forward Cordell James placed 126th on the NHL list.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

USHL’s Everett Fitzhugh wants to rock the mic as an NHL play-by-play radio voice

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

David Amber, Detroit Red Wings, Evander Kane, Everett Fitzhurgh, Hockey Night in Canada, Jarome Iginla, Kevin Weekes, NHL Network, Wayne Simmonds

Everett Fitzhugh wants to be The Voice – the guy who shouts “goal!” when the home team puts the biscuit in the basket, the person who vocally paints a Picasso of what’s happening on the ice during a hockey game for those who can’t catch it at the arena or watch it on TV.

Fitzhugh aspires to be a National Hockey League radio play-by-play announcer, a career path not normally associated with 25-year-old African-American men. But Fitzhugh, a Detroit native who grew up spending cold winter nights listening to Ken Kal broadcast Detroit Red Wings games and lazy summer evenings hearing Ernie Harwell do Detroit Tigers baseball, is on a mission to join the small but growing club of NHL broadcasters of color.

Calling Bowling Green hockey games while a student stoked USHL's Everett Fitzhugh's interest in being an NHL radio announcer.

Calling Bowling Green hockey games while a student stoked USHL’s Everett Fitzhugh’s interest in being an NHL radio announcer.

He watches David Amber and Kevin Weekes on CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada,” and former NHLers Anson Carter and Jamal Mayers on NBC Sports Network and NHL Network’s nightly “NHL on The Fly” highlights show and thinks to himself “See you soon, dudes.”

“I think that’s going to be me in 15, 20-plus years, however long it takes,” Fitzhugh told me recently.  “This has been a dream of mine to work in sports, to work in media, since I was seven years old. I didn’t know I wanted to strictly work in hockey until I was in college. But I see those guys on TV and it gives me hope that what I’m doing will eventually pay off. It gives me hope that I can be on ESPN one day and I can become an NHL radio play-by-play man, which is my ultimate goal.”

In the meantime, Fitzhugh is busy paying his dues. He attended Bowling Green State University – alma mater of Pittsburgh Penguins and U.S. Olympics men’s hockey team Head Coach Dan Bylsma – and did radio play-by-play for 120 games for the NCAA Division I Falcons men’s hockey team.

He joined the United States Hockey League in 2012 and is manger of communications for the nation’s top junior hockey league that serves as a stepping-stone to college hockey or the NHL for many players.

Working out of Chicago, Fitzhugh handles the USHL’s social media entries, press releases, YouTube posts and video highlights. The job often gets him out of the office and into the lock rooms of USHL teams. But more than anything, Fitzhugh wants to get back behind the microphone and call hockey games on the radio.

“People call me weird. We used to joke when I was in school that TV guys do half the work but get twice the money,” he said. “But I love radio. I just love painting the picture. I love being able to describe what’s going on and the art of being on the radio. It’s a difficult job, but when you’re able to master hockey radio play-by-play, for me, that’s the ultimate position in sports.”

Amber knows how Fitzhugh feels. He grew up in Toronto listening Toronto Maple Leafs broadcasts and thought that he, too, might be a play-by-play guy some day.

"Hockey Night's" David Amber sees diversity gains on the ice and in the media.

“Hockey Night’s” David Amber sees diversity gains on the ice and in the media.

But he gravitated to sports reporting instead. Now, he’s the pre-game, between-periods, and post-game presence on Canada’s equivalent of “Monday Night Football.” He’s pleased to see more minorities are on the air talking hockey and more people like Fitzhugh in the pipeline waiting for their break.

“The exposure from ‘Hockey Night,’ I’ve certainly had a significant amount of minority faces – mostly black, but even Indian and Asian – say they’re happy to see it’s (hockey) not so homogeneous the way it was maybe 10 years ago; that there are people of color coming in and being able to lend a voice and face to the sport,” Amber told me recently. “It has been a slow transition, absolutely, but there are going to be a lot of new young guys coming up now.”

And the interest of people like Fitzhugh to work in hockey reflects the increasing number hockey players of color and the growing impact they’re are having on the game from the USHL all the way up to the NHL, Amber said.

“There are more black faces in the NHL than there’s ever been,” he told me. “When you look at the guys who’ve made it now, these are impact players whether it’s (Philadelphia Flyers’ Wayne) Simmonds, we know what (Boston Bruins’ Jarome) Iginla’s been able to do over his career, (Winnipeg Jets’) Evander Kane, (Dallas Stars’) Trevor Daley. But because the position of the players have increased and the position of some of the media members has increased from a minority standpoint, I think success breeds success and visibility breeds more visibility and I think that’s a good thing.”

But old stereotypes still die hard. Fitzhugh says people – both minorities and whites – occasionally do double-takes when he tells them what he does for a living and what his dream job is.

“I’ve gotten snide comments, off the cuff comments “Oh, you’re black, you can’t be in hockey, you can’t do this, that and the other,'” he said. “And I’m like ‘No, you look on TV, we’re growing.’ You look at some of the best players in the NHL – up and coming Evander Kane, if he can ever stay healthy; Jarome Iginla fed (Pittsburgh Penguins’)Sidney Crosby to lead Canada to the Gold Medal four years ago; (Winnipeg Jets’) Dustin Byfuglien was barely left off our U.S. Olympic team this year.”

“Black people, we’re not barely surviving in hockey,” he added. “I think we are staples. We’re contributing  day in, day out to the hockey world on the ice, off the ice, in the media.”

Amber said he rarely gets negative comments about his presence on hockey telecasts. But he recalls getting the odd tweet during his NHL Network days from viewers filled with keyboard courage who’d urge him “to stick with basketball.”

“Nothing crazy, certainly nothing like what (Washington Capitals forward) Joel Ward received after he scored the Game 7 OT winner against Boston (in April 2012),” he said. “But a couple of snide remarks, inappropriate remarks. By and large it hasn’t been a big issue. Living in Canada, it hasn’t been a prevalent issue. In the States, I think it’s still by and large viewed as a white guy’s sport.”

Even among minorities. Fitzhugh says striking up a hockey conversation at his local barbershop can be a challenge.

“They look at me a little weird,” he said with a laugh. “My barbers knows that I work in hockey. When I first told them, they kind of looked at me like I was a science experiment like ‘Oh, you work in hockey?’ I enlighten them a little bit, but hockey’s not a regular topic of conversation when I go to the barbershop.”

But Fitzhugh believes that will change in time because “more and more minorities and people of color are becoming aware of the game.”

“Think if anyone goes to a hockey game, they will be hooked,” he said. “If could have a mission, it would be to take everybody, everyone in this country to a hockey game.”

Or to have folks listen to his play-by-play account on the radio.

Special thanks: to Color of Hockey follower and ChicagoSide Senior Writer Evan F. Moore who first reported on Fitzhugh.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • WhatsApp
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

Recent Posts

  • Asian & Pacific Islander heritage players on 2020-21 team rosters in pictures
  • Meet the Black players on NCAA women’s hockey rosters in 2020-21
  • Jaden Lindo adds new chapter to ‘Soul on Ice’ by winning hockey championship
  • Sarah Nurse seeks gold at IIHF world championship after winning Olympic silver
  • Hockey Family Photo Album, Page 2

Archives

  • May 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • April 2013
  • December 2012

Categories

  • John Tortorella
  • nhl.com
  • Uncategorized

Hockey Links

  • American Collegiate Hockey Association
  • Black Ice Book
  • Detroit Hockey Association
  • Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation
  • Fort Dupont Ice Arena
  • Hasek's Heroes
  • Hockey is for Everyone
  • Hockeyland Canada
  • Ice Hockey in Harlem
  • International Ice Hockey Federation
  • Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation
  • Kevin Weekes Online
  • NHL official website
  • NHL Uniforms
  • Ted's Take
  • The American Hockey League
  • The ECHL
  • TSN
  • USA Hockey

Powered by WordPress.com.

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: