TheColorOfHockey

~ Hockey for Fans and Players of Color

TheColorOfHockey

Monthly Archives: April 2014

L.A. Clippers’ Donald Sterling could escape blacks by owning a hockey team. Really?

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Anaheim Ducks, Devante Smith-Pelly, Donald Sterling, Emerson Etem, Jarome Iginla, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Flyers, Ray Emery, Wayne Simmonds

She had to drag hockey into this mess.

In a weekend column in The Los Angeles Times, Sandy Banks wrote that it’s time for Los Angeles Clippers’ Donald Sterling to give up ownership of his National Basketball Association team in the wake of recordings on which he purportedly makes racist comments about black people. Banks offers a novel solution for Sterling if he wants to stay in the sports business.

Boston's Jarome Iginla, a superstar likely Hall of Fame-bound when he retires.

Boston’s Jarome Iginla, a superstar likely Hall of Fame-bound when he retires.

“Let the real estate magnate and Clippers owner take his millions and buy a hockey team,” she wrote. “Then he won’t have to worry about black superstars showing up for games on his girlfriend’s arm.”

Nice.

Reading that line saddened me, angered me, and made me think that maybe I haven’t been doing my job with this blog. Her suggestion that Sterling “buy a hockey team” is a zinger, a real humdinger, perhaps designed to add a little levity to a serious problem. The only problem is that if Banks paid a little more attention to hockey maybe she’d know that the zinger has lost its zing – that hockey isn’t exclusively white anymore on the ice, in the stands, in the broadcast booth, or in the owner’s box.

With one paragraph, Banks bought into a stereotype. Hockey has the hat trick – a feat in which one player scores three goals in a single game. Banks scored a double negative by suggesting that Sterling and his alleged racist ways could find a safe haven in the overwhelming whiteness of hockey.

It’s a false image and its wrong.

Blacks and other people of color have a rich hockey history and are a growing presence in today’s game. If Banks watched Sunday’s Anaheim Ducks–Dallas Stars game Sunday she would have seen Anaheim forward Devante Smith-Pelly, who is black, score two goals, including the tying goal in the closing seconds in the third period that sent the game to overtime.

She would have seen Dallas defenseman Trevor Daley, who is also black, score two goals for the Stars. It was stellar game for Daley, even though the Stars lost the game 5-4 in overtime and were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As a teenager, Daley overcame his then-coach and general manager of his major junior hockey team – former National Hockey League goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck – calling him the N-word in the 2002-03 season to not only survive, but to thrive.  The ‘Beezer was canned from his position with the Ontario Hockey League’s  Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds for using the slur and Daley has gone on to play more nearly 690 NHL games, all with Dallas. If she watched the entire Anaheim-Dallas series, she might have noticed forward Emerson Etem, an African-American born in Long Beach, California, playing for the Ducks.

If she caught any of the other Stanley Cup Playoffs games on television she might have gotten glimpses of other black players: Philadelphia

Dallas defenseman Trevor Daley.

Dallas defenseman Trevor Daley.

Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds (a former Los Angeles Kings player) and his teammate, goaltender Ray Emery; Tampa Bay Lightning forward J.T. Brown, who was brought up from the American Hockey League when Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos was injured but was so good that he remained with the team when Stamkos returned; Boston Bruins forward Jarome Iginla, who’ll likely be the third black player enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame whenever he retires; Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Johnny Oduya, who played for his native Sweden in the 2014 Winter Olympics; St. Louis Blues rugged forward Ryan Reaves; and Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban, who was awarded the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman last season.

If she kept watching between periods she might have witnessed the new normal: former NHLers Kevin Weekes, Jamal Mayers, and Anson Carter and broadcaster David Amber – all black men – imparting hockey knowledge and analysis to viewers in the United States and Canada. If Banks attended a Kings or Ducks game, she might run into Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding, Jr.,  rap artist Snoop Dogg, or Isaiah Mustafa, the original Old Spice Guy who’s a hockey player and Kings season ticket holder. Say, wasn’t that director Spike Lee wearing a New York Rangers jersey at Game 5 against the Flyers Sunday in Madison Square Garden?

If Banks glanced at the organization chart of the St. Louis Blues, she’d find David L. Steward, an African-American who’s chairman and co-founder of World Technology, Inc., is a part owner of the team.

And hockey isn’t just for the black rich and famous. Pamela Merritt – Twitter handle @SharkFu – is a black, life-long Blues fan who’s had her heart broken in the playoffs once again by an early St. Louis exit. Twitter’s @Kia1 is a black hockey mom who knows the price of goalie equipment and the art of negotiating the parental politics of organized youth hockey. Then there’s @IceHockeyDanceMom, a Southern California woman who’s raising a dancer-niece and hockey-playing nephew solo. You could almost feel the tears rise from the keyboards from a tweet she wrote last December that said “a coach just told me; I’m not rich, kid is black & So-Cal. #NHLDream unrealistic.”

Her nephew still plays hockey and he still dreams.

Lord knows hockey isn’t nirvana for players and fans of color, as Adam Proteau of The Hockey News chronicled in a recent column. But to suggest that a Donald Sterling would be at home in hockey isn’t a pithy zinger.

It’s just wrong.

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“Razor” and the “Wayne Train” roll into MSG, roll out with Flyers 4-2 win

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Ray Emery, Wayne Simmonds

“Razor” and the “Wayne Train” rolled into Madison Square Garden Sunday and rolled out with a 4-2 Stanley Cup Playoffs win against the New York Rangers.

Flyers goaltender Ray Emery.

Flyers goaltender Ray Emery.

Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ray “Razor” Emery and right wing Wayne “Wayne Train” Simmonds keyed the Flyers victory that tied the best-of-seven series at a game apiece. After surrendering two first period goals to Rangers right wing Martin St. Louis and left wing  Benoit Pouliot, Emery played an exceptional game.

He quieted talk about his suspect lateral movement by stopping 31 of 33 shots, including key saves on Rangers rugged forward Rick Nash. Emery, who signed with the Flyers as a free agent during the summer after winning a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks, played in place of injured Flyers starting goaltender Steve Mason. He earned his first Stanley Cup Playoffs victory win in exactly three years – April 20, 2011 – as a member of the Anaheim Ducks.

Simmonds sealed the Flyers victory with an empty net goal scored in the closing seconds when he gathered the puck deep in the Flyers zone, muscled through two Rangers players while skating the puck out of the zone, and fired it into the vacant Rangers goal from just past the center ice red line.

The victory tied the series at one game apiece. But it also highlighted the importance of Emery and Simmonds to the Flyers. Emery was brought in to compete with Mason for the starter’s job. When the team tabbed Mason as their Number One goalie, Emery settled in as the consummate back-up, the role he had in Chicago which had Corey Crawford between the pipes.

Simmonds played 16 minutes, 27 seconds of snarly, aggressive hockey with lots of work along the boards and in front of Rangers goaltender

Henrik Lundqvist. But his best and perhaps most-difficult scoring chance came with Lundqvist pulled from the net and with the puck deep in the Philadelphia zone.

The empty night goal was another big moment in what’s been a breakout year for Simmonds, who scored 29 goals, 31 assists and collected 106

Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds.

Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds.

penalty minutes in 82 games. He led the Flyers in goals. Not bad for a player who wasn’t considered the centerpiece of the 2011 trade that brought him, forward Brayden Schenn and a second-round draft pick from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Flyers forward and former captain Mike Richards.

But these days hockey people are talking about Simmonds as one of the National Hockey League’s top power forwards. To Philadelphia fans, the hard-working wing  is pure Flyer, especially after he notched Gordie Howe hat tricks – a goal, an assist, and a fight – in February 2013 games against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Winnipeg Jets.

And he’s adding more dimensions to his game, proving he’s more than just a big body player who makes a living scoring close-in goals off rebounds and screens.

“The one area I think he’s improved and he’s starting to establish himself is the Rush game,” Flyers Head Coach Craig Berube told The Los Angeles Times last month. “He’s skating with the puck and doing more things off the rush, a few goals off the rush.”

Sunday’s empty-netter offered a perfect – and timely – example.

 

 

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NY-Philly hockey hate takes a timeout to help get mega-iceplex built in the Bronx

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, Kingsbridge National Ice Center, Mark Messier, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Ruben Diaz, the Bronx, Wayne Simmonds

When the founders of the Kingsbridge National Ice Center achieve their goal and build the world’s largest ice skating facility in the Bronx section of New York City, add an assist to a seemingly unlikely line mate from Philadelphia.

While the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers duke it out of the ice in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a group comprised of New York hockey enthusiasts – including iconic former Rangers captain Mark Messier – and officials from the Philadelphia’s Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, established by the Flyers’ founder and patriarch, are working together in helping transform the massive vacant Kingsbridge Armory into a $320 million state-of-the-art ice hockey, skating, and ice sport palace that serves its surrounding community and the city by 2017.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

There’s a lot of hockey hate between New York and Philadelphia. Rangers fans haven’t forgotten the pounding and hair-pulling helpless defenseman Dale Rolfe endured courtesy of Broad Street Bully heavyweight forward Dave Schultz during the 1974 playoffs or the sick feeling from being eliminated from playoff contention on the last day of the 2010 season by the Flyers in a shootout.

Flyers faithful always remember their team being looked down on as unworthy hockey heathens by their more gentlemanly Original Six neighbor up I-95 and vividly recall the heartache of watching the 1982 team get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs by a third-string Rangers goalie named Eddie Mio, who somehow managed to channel his inner Eddie Giacomin.

But when it comes to the KNIC project, there are no cat-calls about Rangers’ Ron Duguay’s flowing curly locks and disco-era fondness for Sassoon jeans or chants that pugilistic former Flyers goalie Ron Hextall sucks! Just cooperation, and lots of it.

“They’re hockey people,” John R. Nolan, KNIC project co-founder, Boston College alum, and long-time Rangers season ticket-holder said of his new-found friends from Philly. “We’ve talked about this. Hockey is a religion and if you’re under the tent, you’re under the tent and everyone wants to help. There’s always room for good-natured ribbing and rivalry but that has never gotten in the way.”

In fact, the close working relationship has taken some of the edge off for Nolan.

“As a life-long Rangers fan who grew up hating the Flyers, in some respects I’m mad at the guys at Snider because they’ve taken that away from me,” Nolan told me recently. “I don’t have the same level of distaste for Philadelphia that I used to. I’ve had to shift that to New Jersey.”

Scott Tharp, the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation’s president, said two things are the ties that bind his program and the KNIC project: hockey and kids.

Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds gives tips to a Snider Hockey participant. The program's ice and educational activities helped sell Bronx leaders on the KNIC project.

Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds gives tips to a Snider Hockey participant. The program’s ice and educational activities helped sell Bronx leaders on the KNIC project.

“It’s not unusual for non-profits with common missions to share information and help each other. Our interest is in helping kids,” Tharp told me recently. “What the Flyers and Rangers do on the ice is kind of separate from what Snider Hockey and the Kingsbridge Armory folks do.”

What the KNIC folks plan to do is turn the 750,000-square-foot armory located just below West 195th and adjacent to the Number 4 Express subway line into the mother of all iceplexes with nine rinks – including a 5,000-seat arena that they hope will attract a minor league hockey team- locker rooms, office space, a health and wellness facility, community center and office space.

The project’s brain trust says that the mega facility will help solve a severe rink shortage in New York, a city of 8.2 million people and only seven indoor year-round ice sheets.

The New York City Council approved the KNIC project last December, enticed by the prospect of the facility becoming a lynchpin for the Bronx’s revitalization efforts and lured by the prospect of it creating at least 260 permanent jobs, 890 construction jobs and boosting the fortunes of nearby businesses.

When completed, Kingsbridge will eclipse the eight-sheet, 300,000-square-foot Schwan Super Rink in Blaine, Minnesota, as the largest ice arena complex in the world.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

Winning New York City Council approval was one thing. Winning over skeptical Bronx political and community leaders who questioned the wisdom of putting a giant ice facility in a borough that’s 53.5 percent Hispanic and 30.8 percent non-Hispanic black was another. Several critics dismissively asked “If you build it, who will come?”

“I have to be quite honest with you, that was my initial reaction as well,” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., told me recently. “And then I started to notice that those individuals who would make those comments – which, by the way I believe are borderline racist, I’m going to use that word – are blacks and Latinos. I think what happens is you get people who are, for so long, put in this mental box that they start to accept as if it were reality that this is something that their kids don’t want to do or cannot do.”

Messier, Kingsbridge’s CEO and the hockey face of the project, told NHL.com that the project had to stress the benefits of a partnership between the mega rink and the community.

“We had to sell them on that fact,” Messier told NHL.com. “The only way to do that is to get to know each other and gain the trust. We know it’s not our armory. It’s theirs. We have to be respectful of that.”

That’s where Snider Hockey came in. By coincidence, Kevin Parker – hockey dad, founder of KNIC Partners LLC, die-hard Rangers fan, and former Deutsche Bank asset management director – met and dined with T. Quinn Spitzer, Jr. – partner and chairman of McHugh Consulting, die-hard Flyers fan, and a Snider Hockey board member – during a European business trip in 2011.

“These two Americans sit down at a table in somewhere Europe and quickly discover they both have a passion for hockey: one’s a Flyers fan, one’s a Rangers fan,” Nolan recalled. “As the conversation progresses, Kevin shares what he wants to do in New York City and the concerns he has in how he can get a rink or rinks into areas where you would need community acceptance. I think we knew early on that the community angle was not just something we were interested in, but something we needed in order to succeed.”

“Kevin kind of shared ‘These are our challenges,'” Nolan continued. “Quinn said ‘Let me tell you about Snider Hockey.'”

Created in 2005, the Snider Hockey program exposes 3,000 Philadelphia-area children to the game of hockey by providing them with free equipment, ice time, and instruction at five skating rinks. The hockey serves as a hook for participating children to stay in school and improve both academically and as people.

The program works closely with the School District of Philadelphia and Philadelphia’s Department of Parks and Recreation to offer a cutting edge program that blends hockey with a rigorous off-ice life skills curriculum and additional educational services.

“We’re trying to impart skills that help the children grow up to be productive citizens,” Tharp told me in 2011. “Communication skills, the simple things that are taken for granted: the ability to introduce yourself; to look a person in the eye; give a firm handshake; the ability to carry on an open-ended conversation rather than a closed conversation.”

When Snider Hockey began, about 70 percent of its personnel were dedicated to hockey, Tharp told NHL.com. Today, academic aides and tutors outnumber hockey personnel 4-to-1, Tharp said. Over the last three years, 100 percent of the program’s participants have graduated. About 83 percent of the kids moved on to post-secondary education, with a handful of them playing hockey in college.

The program grew so large in size and stature that it struggled to find enough ice time for its kids. In 2010, Snider’s foundation kicked in $6.5 million, which was matched by state funds, to renovate four run-down public ice rinks. Today, those rinks are all enclosed and have National Hockey League-caliber boards, lighting, glass, and community space.

The conversation between Parker and Spitzer in Europe swiftly led to meetings between the KNIC founders and Snider Hockey officials back in the United States. Nolan said he and Stephan Butler, another founding Kingsbridge partner, hopped an Amtrak train to Philadelphia to check out the Snider program and returned to New York  “blown away” by what they saw.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

Kingsbridge National Ice Center rendering.

“Everything about Snider in terms of how their organization was put together, what their values were, in terms of how they practiced, the kind of kids they were turning out, literally every aspect of their program was impressive,” Nolan told me. “We kind of took that message back and started selling it in the Bronx in answer to the question ‘Why are our kids going to play hockey?’ There was a huge jump, leap of faith, necessary from the community that minority kids, be they black or Hispanic, would really take to hockey. When confronted with the question our answer was ‘Snider. Take a look at Snider, Snider’s got thousands of kids.’ Snider became an answer to the question.”

So much so that Bronx elected officials and community leaders wanted to see the program themselves. So about 65 of them climbed aboard a chartered bus outside the armory and took it the Scanlon ice rink, one of the renovated facilities, in Philadelphia’s Kensington section.

“What I saw was amazing,” Diaz told me. “To see 75 black and Latino kids in one of the centers enthusiastic about coming in right after school; to see them with their big duffel bags full of equipment that, by the way, was donated and readily-available to them free of charge; to see them getting academic instruction in math and reading; and to see these kids get on the ice as if it were second nature. You look at all of the numbers from the program and we see that school attendance has gone up, we see that bad behavior has gone down. That’s exactly what I want for my Bronx kids.”

The Scanlon tour has been followed up by several telephone conversations between Diaz and Snider.

“I think Ed told him of his vision, told him that we would be willing to support their efforts as consultants, and basically convinced Ruben that hockey was a great vehicle, to help children, to help kids stay the course,” Tharp said.

Diaz said the Philadelphia visit and talks with Snider have set a high bar for the KNIC group in their Bronx community outreach efforts.

“I have a joke with Kevin Parker and Mark Messier. I say ‘You guys messed up’ and they ask me ‘Why?’ And I say ‘Because you allowed me to come to Philly and see the Ed Snider program,'” Diaz said. “And so that’s the standard I’m going to hold for them right here in the Bronx.”

And that’s just fine with Nolan.

“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he told me. “Our intent is to build a program just like theirs. I don’t know if there’s much to improve on, but we’re going to try. They’ve given us the playbook and we’re going to execute.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nashville Predators’ Seth Jones named to 2014 U.S. World Championship team

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dan Bylsma, International Ice Hockey Federation, Nashville Predators, Peter Laviolette, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins., Seth Jones, USA Hockey

Nashville Predators defenseman Seth Jones’ rookie National Hockey League season is over, with the Preds failing to make the playoffs, but his hockey year is far from being done.

No NHL playoffs for Nashville's Seth Jones but more international hockey as a Team USA member.

No NHL playoffs for Nashville’s Seth Jones but more international hockey as a Team USA member.

Jones was among the first 15 players named Tuesday to the U.S. Men’s National Team that will play in the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship May 9-25 in Minsk, Belarus. Jones, the fourth player selected in the 2013 NHL Draft, played in 77 games for the Predators and tallied six goals and 19 assists. He averaged 19:37 minutes on ice per game.

Jones adds a wealth of international experience to the U.S. squad, having played for U.S. national development teams since 2010-11.  He was a member of U.S. junior teams that won Gold Medals in 2013, 2012, and 2011. The son of former NBA player Popeye Jones was invited to the 2014 U.S. men’s hockey team’s pre-Olympic orientation camp last summer, the only invitee who hadn’t played in an NHL game.

He didn’t make the U.S. Olympic team but USA Hockey officials made it clear that Jones is definitely on their radar for the 2016 Winter Olympics, if the NHL sends its players to the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In the meantime, playing in the 2014 Worlds will mean that Jones will postpone rest for what already has been a long hockey period for him.  He started the 2012-13 season with the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks, then played in the Junior World Championship, then returned to the Winterhawks for hockey’s Memorial Cup championship. He took about two-three weeks off between the time the Winterawks lost to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Halifax Mooseheads in the Memorial Cup final and the 2013 NHL Draft. “It definitely felt like a 12-year – er, 12 month season,” Jones said at the pre-Olympic orientation camp.

Jones could be a vital cog in USA Hockey rebuilding its national team after an American squad filled with NHL players failed to medal at

the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.  That team was led by Pittsburgh Penguins Head Coach Dan Bylsma. USA Hockey

Former Flyers Coach Peter Laviolette seeks to improve U.S. hockey team's performance.

Former Flyers Coach Peter Laviolette seeks to improve U.S. hockey team’s performance.

Tuesday named former Philadelphia Flyers Head Coach Peter Laviolette the bench boss of the 2014 men’s national team.

Laviolette served as an assistant coach in Sochi. Laviolette and his players will look to avenge the poor U.S. performance in Sochi and

improve upon the Bronze Medal the Americans won at the 2013 Worlds played in Helsinki and Stockholm last May.

The other players named to the team Tuesday were New York Islanders defenseman Matt Donovan; Torontoa Maple Leafs defenseman Jake Gardiner; Florida Panthers forward Jimmy Hayes; Boston College forward Kevin Hayes; goaltender Connor Hellebuyck of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell; Buffalo Sabres defenseman Jake McCabe; forward Peter Mueller of Switzerland’s Kloten Flyers; New York Islanders forward Brock Nelson; Edmonton Oilers defenseman Jeff Petry; Florida Panthers forward Drew Shore; Nashville Predators forward Craig Smith; forward Tim Stapleton of the AK Bars Kazan of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League; Florida Panthers forward Vince Trocheck; and Winnipeg Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba.

The rest of the U.S. roster could be filled later with NHL players whose teams didn’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs or are eliminated in the early rounds.

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From Larry Kwong to Brad Kwong, celebrating hockey’s rich Asian legacy

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Atlanta Flames, Boston Bruins, Brad Kwong, Calgary Flames, Canadian Football League, Dubuque Fighting Saints, Harvard University, Larry Kwong, Minnesota Wild, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Norman "Normie" Kwong, USHL

Brad Kwong has gone from the Ivy League to corn country for the love of hockey, adding to the game’s rich Asian history along the way.

Kwong, a defenseman who captained Harvard University’s hockey team in 1984-85, is part of the group that owns the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League, the top junior league in the country. When Northern Lights, LLC purchased the team in 2009, Kwong became part of a growing number of people of color – many of them Asian – in hockey’s ownership ranks, from the junior leagues to the National Hockey League.

“I have the benefit of having some really good partners that helped me get along in this profession,” Kwong told me recently. “I don’t ever recall an encounter where I was compromised or biased because of my ethnicity. And that might be me just having the blinders on or being naïve to it. But I think this sport in particular, because I lived through it, and in business in general, if you prove that you have a certain acumen, drive, and initiative you can succeed in anything.”

Brad Kwong, center, congratulates on of his team's players (Photo/Dubuque Fighting Saints).

Brad Kwong, center, congratulates on of his team’s players (Photo/Dubuque Fighting Saints).

Harvard crimson and business ties run deep through the Fighting Saints ownership: Kwong,  Phillip Falcone, Northern Lights’s principal owner and part owner of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and Peter Chiarelli, general manager of the Boston Bruins, played hockey together at Harvard in the 1980s. Mark Falcone, another Northern Lights managing partner and a Minnesota Wild board member, played hockey for the University of Denver hockey player. Phillip Falcone is chief investment officer of Harbinger Capital Partners, a Wall Street private hedge fund, and Kwong is a managing partner in the firm.

“Our experience at Harvard actually changed the courses of our lives,” Kwong said. “We all believed that hockey, most notably college hockey, changed the trajectory  of our lives. So we wanted to give back to the sport and college hockey and obviously the USHL being the primary feeder of players to NCCA Division I hockey was a great platform to do that.”

The 50-year-old Kwong may have good partners assisting him in the hockey business, but he also learned a lesson or two from his dad. Norman “Normie” Kwong was a star running back Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. But he was also part of the ownership group that bought the NHL’s Atlanta Flames and moved the team to Calgary in 1980.

When the Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989, the elder Kwong became one of the few people whose names are etched on both the CFL’s Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup.

“He, of course, back in the 40s and 50s, experienced the racial stuff,” the younger Kwong said of his father, who also served as lieutenant governor of Alberta from 2005 to 2010. “He always just fought through it, never saw himself as different, and just kind of worked hard and achieved a lot, regardless of his race. He always instilled in my brothers and I to just do your best, work hard, and you’ll achieve the goals you set out for yourself.”

 Kwong, front row, center, was captain of Harvard's 1984-85 hockey team (Photo/Harvard University).

Kwong, front row, center, was captain of Harvard’s 1984-85 hockey team (Photo/Harvard University).

Brad and Norman Kwong aren’t the only family members with hockey ties. Graham Lee, Brad Kwong’s cousin, is owner and governor of the Victoria Royals of the Western Hockey League. Lee’s company, RG Properties, built and operates the 7,000-seat Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, the arena where the Royals play.

Lee and the Kwongs are part of a history of Asian ownership in hockey. The Tampa Bay Lightning began its NHL life under a Japanese ownership group. Shanghai-born and New York-raised Charles Wang, owns the New York Islanders, an NHL franchise that’s currently up for sale. Chicago-based businessman Horn Chen is a minority owner of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.

The media-shy Chen once told The Chicago Sun-Times that he became interested in hockey when his son played in a youth tournament in Indianapolis. That interest launched Chen on a team-buying binge: He founded the Central Hockey League and owned the CHL’s Wichita Thunder, Topeka Tarantulas, Oklahoma City Blazers and Mississippi RiverKings. He also owned the International Hockey League’s Indianapolis Ice, the East Coast Hockey League’s Columbus Chill, the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders (briefly) and several minor league football, baseball, and basketball teams.

Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi.

Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi.

Asian-American and Asian-Canadians have had an impact on the ice as well. Forward Paul Kayria, who’s of Japanese descent, was the first hockey player of Asian descent to captain an NHL team when he was awarded the “C’ by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.  Defenseman Jim Paek, who’s of Korean heritage,won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990s. Seoul-born right wing Richard Park enjoyed a long NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Wild, Philadelphia Flyers, Vancouver Canucks and the Islanders.

Asian players currently in the NHL include Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi, who’s Japanese-Canadian, and Carolina Hurricanes forward Manny Malhotra, who’s Indo-Canadian.

Hockey has come a long way since Larry Kwong became the first Chinese-Canadian – and some historians argue the first person of color – to play in the NHL when he skated a single one-minute shift for the New York Rangers  in a game against the Montreal Canadiens at the Montreal Forum during the 1947-48 season. A decade later, in 1958, Willie O’Ree became the NHL’s first black player when he skated for the Bruins, ironically, against the Canadiens.

Hockey has come a long way from the days when Larry Kwong, center,  played (Photo/Chad Soon).

Hockey has come a long way from the days when Larry Kwong, center, played (Photo/Chad Soon).

Larry Kwong, who was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame last September at age 90, isn’t related to Brad Kwong, the two men share a sort of six degrees of separation that causes Brad to chuckle when recalling an episode that happened while he was playing professional hockey in Europe post-Harvard undergrad.

“There was a time in San Moritz, a group of fans came down, said hello, and said they knew my father,” he said. “My father had a reasonable amount of fame in Canada, but I didn’t think it extended to Switzerland. Obviously, it didn’t. They meant Larry, who played hockey in Switzerland at one point in his career. When I was 8-9 years old, he had moved back to Calgary and given that my parents knew him, he offered to teach my older brother and I tennis.”

Brad Kwong believes he’ll have company in the owner’s club in the not-too-distant future as minority players currently in professional hockey get older and transition into the next phase of their careers.

“As the numbers increase you’re going to have more people like me who played the game, who want to stay part of the game, which is my primary motivation, and I would imagine they’d stay involve in some way whether it be coach, general manager, owner, business president, whatever,” he said. “The sport is a fascinating sport. And I think once you’ve been exposed to it, you’re going to get more and more people, regardless of their color, wanting to be a part of it.”

 

 

 

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