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Monthly Archives: September 2015

Globetrotting Yushiro Hirano hopes long hockey road trip leads to NHL career

27 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Alex Ovechkin, Chicago Blackhawks, Jonathan Toews, Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay Lightning, USHL, Washington Capitals

Yushiro Hirano has taken the term “road trip” to a new level.

The 20-year-old right wing left Hokkaido, Japan, last year to play hockey in Tingsryds, Sweden, some 4,683 miles away from his island home.

This year, Hirano’s pursuit of a National Hockey League career has taken him nearly 5,960 miles from home to Ohio, where he made history over the weekend as a member of the Youngstown Phantoms. Skating in the Phantoms’ season-opening 6-4 loss to Team USA Saturday, Hirano became the United States Hockey League’s first player born in Japan.

Ohio is Japan's Yushiro Hirano's new hockey home (Photo/Bill Paterson).

Ohio is Japan’s Yushiro Hirano’s new hockey home (Photo/Bill Paterson).

“I’m happy because I feel there is a responsibility for me to represent Japan well,”  Hirano said when asked in an e-mail exchange about making the Phantoms roster. “I hope to grow the game in Japan and make everybody proud. I also want to play well enough to get to the professional ranks here in the United States.”

Joining the Phantoms capped an excellent hockey summer for Hirano. Before he tried out for the USHL team, he attended the Chicago Blackhawks development camp in July as a free agent invitee.

Hirano attended the Chicago Blackhawks development camp before joining the Phantoms (Photo/Bill Paterson).

Hirano attended the Chicago Blackhawks development camp before joining the Phantoms (Photo/Bill Paterson).

The Hawks learned about Hirano through Andrew Allen, who was a developmental goaltending coach in the Chicago organization before becoming the Buffalo Sabres’ goalie coach this season. Allen knew of Hirano because he served as goaltending coach and developmental coach for Japan’s national team.

The son of a former Team Japan player, Hirano compiled an impressive numbers in Japan and Sweden. He tallied 12 goals and 14 assists in 26 games for Tingsryds’ junior team last season.

He collected 6 goals and 2 assists in 5 games as captain for Japan’s Under-20 team playing in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Junior Championship in the D1B Division in 2014-15. He also notched 3 goals in 5 games for Team Japan’s men’s squad in the IIHF world championship D1A Division last season.

But Hirano – whose first name is sometimes spelled Yushiroh –  wasn’t widely known in North America because Japan isn’t a hockey power. Its men’s team is 21st in IIHF rankings. The women’s team is ranked eighth internationally and competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The squad played hard in Russia, but didn’t win a game.

With a baseball and soccer-obsessed population of 127,103,388, Japan has 19,260 hockey players – 9,641 men, 6,996 juniors, and 2,623 women – playing on 120 outdoor rinks and 110 indoor ice sheets.

“It is still a minor sport in Japan, but more people have been watching and following hockey in the United States, which will only help the game,” Hirano told me.

So how did Hirano wind up in Youngstown?  Tingsryds team management emailed Phantoms CEO and Co-Owner Troy Loney that Hirano might be worth a look.

“He received an email this summer and passed it along to our general manager about a young Japanese player who was looking to pay his own way to come over and try out,” Phantoms Head Coach John Wroblewski told me recently. “I guess there was a little bit of intrigue because he attended Chicago Blackhawks rookie camp as well this summer, but we knew nothing about him when the emails started coming around.”

It didn’t take long for the 6-foot, 200-pound Hirano to impress Wroblewski.

“He’s a big kid, very strong and sturdy,” he said. “He looks a lot like some of the pro players I dealt with the last few years. This leads into him being able to shoot the puck extremely hard. Tremendous accurate shot, very, very heavy shot. Those are the things that stuck out right away.”

Hirano is one of the Phantoms' top forwards and skates on the power play (Photo/Bill Paterson).

Hirano is one of the Phantoms’ top forwards and skates on the power play (Photo/Bill Paterson).

But Wroblewski saw something more in Hirano than a big body and a shot. “His work ethic was the next thing, and the ability to make plays,” he said. “He has quite a bit of vision and the ability to make deft, subtle plays. He works extremely hard away from the puck. If he’s the last guy on a back-check he’s working as hard as if he has it (the puck) going forward.”

Hirano says he’s adjusting to life in North America on and off the ice just fine, though he cites “the language barrier” as the biggest challenge. His coach isn’t so sure about that.

“He’s sneaky, I think he might know a little more than he’s letting on,” Wroblewski said with a laugh. “He understands it very well, he does have to concentrate a little more than the next guy on it, but he does understand it quite nicely. I say that because he picks up on subtlties within drills that really aren’t explained very well. Either he’s really smart, knows a little bit more English than we think, or a combination of both. I think it’s the third scenario.”

The United States Hockey League is the nation’s only Tier 1 junior league and prides itself on being a pathway to college hockey for its players. More than 95 percent of USHL players receive an opportunity to play NCAA Division I hockey.

Hirano, however, is viewing his USHL stint in Youngstown as a stepping stone to the NHL. He hopes to someday play alongside or against his favorite players – Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, Tampa Bay Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos, or Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin.

“I’m nowhere close to the (NHL) level yet,” he told The Chicago Tribune in July. “I’d like to keep improving, but if I do get there, it’d be a huge impact for kids in Japan. They’d have a legitimate dream they could look up to and strive for.”

Wroblewski believes that Hirano’s dream isn’t an impossible one.

“In this short time, if his learning curve continues on this pace, on the degree it has thus far, there’s no telling how much he can get done here,” he said. “His straight ahead speed has to improve, there’s definitely a skating factor that the NHL desires, but his ability to play with others and put the puck in the net is pretty special.”

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Josh Ho-Sang embarrassed that Islanders cut him for oversleeping

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Josh Ho-Sang, New York Islanders, Niagara IceDogs

Josh Ho-Sang blames himself for oversleeping on Day 1 of Isles training camp.

Josh Ho-Sang blames himself for oversleeping on Day 1 of Isles training camp.

Forward Josh Ho-Sang, a New York Islanders 2014 first-round draft pick, said he’s embarrassed by being cut by the team for oversleeping on the first day of training camp.

Ho-Sang, 19, was sent packing from the Isles to the Niagara IceDogs, his Ontario Hockey League major juniors team and told bluntly by Islanders General Manager Garth Snow to get his act together.

“Obviously a lot more people found out about my mistake than other people’s daily one, but I definitely take ownership,” Ho-Sang told the Long Island newspaper Newsday following an IceDogs 2-1 preseason loss to the Kitchener Rangers in which Ho-Sang scored the lone Niagara Falls goal. “I don’t think there’s anyone to blame…it’s embarrassing.”

Give the full Newsday story a read. Also check out this excellent story by Sportsnet about the vexing conundrum that is Josh Ho-Sang.

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Hockey season’s coming! Wait, it’s already here news-wise!

19 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Josh Ho-Sang, Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, P.K. Subban, Ray Emery, Tampa Bay Lightning, Willie O'Ree

The puck hasn’t dropped for the 2015-16 hockey season yet and there’s already tons of news – most of it good, some of it worrisome.

First, three cheers for Willie O’Ree. The American Hockey League’s new San Diego Gulls franchise is hosting “Willie O’Ree Night” on Oct. 16 and will honor the National Hockey League’s first black player before the Gulls take on the Bakersfield Condors.

O’Ree skated into the NHL and history on Jan. 18, 1958 as a Boston Bruins forward playing against the Montreal Canadiens at the old Montreal Forum. He appeared in 45 games over two seasons for the Bruins – 1957-58 and 1960-61 – and tallied 4 goals, 10 assists and 26 penalty minutes.

Willie O'Ree, the NHL's first black player, will be honored by the AHL's San Diego Gulls next month.

Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first black player, will be honored by the AHL’s San Diego Gulls next month.

The bulk of his professional hockey career was spent with the San Diego Gulls and the Los Angeles Blades of the old Western Hockey League. In 13 WHL seasons, O’Ree played 785 games, scored 328 goals and 311 assists and amassed 669 penalty minutes. Not bad for a guy who’s blind in his right eye.

“Willie’s a trailblazer and international sports icon,” said Ari Segal,  president of

Willie O'Ree, back in the day.

Willie O’Ree, back in the day.

business operations for the Gulls, the Anaheim Ducks farm team. “He’s worked tirelessly throughout his life to promote diversity in our sport, and increase access to hockey for people of all races, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. We feel fortunate to have the opportunity to honor him and celebrate his life and historic career on the day after his 80th birthday.”

O’Ree, the NHL’s director for Youth Development and ambassador for NHL Diversity, said he’s thrilled to be honored by his hometown team.

“I’m proud and thankful that the club has chosen to honor me during its inaugural AHL season,” he said. “This organization has proven time and again its commitment to becoming deeply ingrained in this community, including and beyond the 34 home game dates.”

Shameless plug: I profile O’Ree  along with Larry Kwong and Fred Sasakamoose – the NHL’s first Asian and Indian players – in the upcoming issue of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Legends program guide. It should be available after the 2015 Hall of Fame induction festivities in November.

P.K. Subban is paying it forward, donating $10 million to the Montreal Children's Hospital.

P.K. Subban is paying it forward, donating $10 million to the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban hasn’t played a game yet this season but he already scored a huge goal when pledged $10 million to the  Montreal Children’s Hospital.

Subban’s gesture is the largest philanthropic commitment ever by a professional athlete in Canada. For his generous donation, the hospital renamed its atrium “Atrium P.K. Subban.”

The flamboyant and sometimes controversial defenseman, a Toronto native, sent a message with his contribution: Hockey-insane Montreal is his town.

“The P.K. Subban Atrium is not only my footprint to the city but, more importantly, it is my sole promise to give back to those who have given me so much.”

Subban’s been on a roll in recent years. The 26-year-old won an Olympic Gold Medal at the 2014 Winter Games with Team Canada, he’s a two-time All-Star, and a 2013 Norris Trophy recipient as the NHL’s best defenseman. And he’s rich. He signed an eight-year contract with the Canadiens reportedly worth $72 million in 2014.

“P.K. is a person of character, who strives for success, always working at new ways to stay on top of his game and he understands the value of teamwork,” said Martine Alfonso, the Montreal Children’s Hospital’s associate executive director. “He is an outstanding role model for our patients and personifies the excellence for which the Children’s is world-renowned.”

Ray Emery isn’t trying to catch lightning in a bottle. He’s trying catch on with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The unemployed goaltender signed a professional tryout offer with the Lightning after the team saw most of its goaltending depth get wheeled into the emergency room.

Andrei Vasilevskiy, starting goalie Ben Bishop’s primary backup, is out for 2-3 months following surgery earlier this month to remove a blood clot from under his left collar bone. Kristers Gudlevskis suffered an injury while playing in a prospects tournament recently.

That leaves an open lane for Emery. The 32-year-old, 11-season NHL vet had a 10-11-7 record with the Philadelphia Flyers last season. He had a 3.06 goals-against average and an .894 save percentage for a team that failed to make the playoffs.

Emery appeared to struggle with explosive lateral movements last season, raising

Ray Emery wants to prove he's still got game at the Lightning's training camp.

Ray Emery wants to prove he’s still got game at the Lightning’s training camp.

questions about whether his right hip, surgically-repaired in 2010, was giving him trouble. The injury was devastating enough back then that many hockey people thought his career was over.

The Flyers opted not to re-sign Emery as Steve Mason’s backup. Philly signed former Washington Capitals-Buffalo Sabres-New York Islanders netminder Michal Neuvirth to a two-year deal reportedly worth $3.25 million.

Emery told the Tampa Bay Times that he’s “not done,” his hip his fine, and it wasn’t the problem last season. He chalked his 2014-15 pedestrian numbers to playing on a bad Flyers team.

“It was a frustrating year on that team,” Emery told The Times. “My season definitely reflected that as well. When you don’t make the playoffs, that’s normally how your season is. You’ve got some good parts, but they don’t outweigh the bad parts.”

Emery is auditioning for the Lightning under the watchful eye of goalie coach Frantz Jean, one of the few coaches of color in the NHL.

It was over before it began for Josh Ho-Sang. The Islanders 2014 first-round draft pick, the 28th overall selection, arrived late for the first day of the team’s training camp. Quicker than a New York minute, the Isles cut the controversial but talented forward and shipped him back to the Niagara IceDogs, his Ontario Hockey League major junior team.

Not even one, but done. Ho-Sang was reportedly late for Day 1 of Islanders camp and sent back to his junior team.

Not even one, but done. Ho-Sang was reportedly late for Day 1 of Islanders camp and sent back to his junior team.

Arthur Staple, the Islanders beat  writer for Long Island’s Newsday, wrote that Head Coach Jack Capuano had planned to have Ho-Sang working on a training camp line with team captain John Tavares and Anders Lee.

“Enough with the bull,” Snow told Newsday Saturday. “It’s time to grow up.”

Snow told the newspaper that Ho-Sang is “obviously talented, but talent isn’t the issue.”

“It’s about becoming a professional and acting like one,” he told the newspaper. “Hopefully he takes this lesson and learns from it. It’s really up to him now – we can’t do anything else for him in this area.”

Team management was so miffed by Ho-Sang’s tardiness that they made the 19-year-old run the stairs of the Nassau Coliseum for three hours, Newsday reported.

Ho-Sang is one of the most talented hockey players to come out of Canada in years. He has scary scoring hands and speed to burn on the ice. But he also scares hockey establishment people because of his outspokenness and what they perceive as his immaturity.

He’s spoken bluntly about race and hockey and he’s blasted Hockey Canada for not inviting him to its summer camp for the world juniors team two years ago after he notched 85 points in 67 games.

Marty Williamson, the IceDogs’ general manager, told the Bullet News of Niagara that the Islanders told him that Ho-Sang was late for training camp because he overslept. He said Ho-Sang is “very upset and humbled by the whole thing.”

The IceDogs GM called Ho-Sang “a good kid” who’s “made a lot of strides in the right direction.” But he also called Ho-Sang out, saying he still has much to do before becoming the elite player that some in the hockey world believe he can be.

“He has some habits he needs to work on,” Williamson told the Bullet News. “He stays up too late playing video games and stuff like that. He sleeps through things and gets himself exhausted.”

Here’s hoping that Ho-Sang takes this oversleeping episode, and the Islanders tough-love approach to it, as a wake-up call.

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Miami ice: Randy Hernandez joins U.S. National Team Development Program

10 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Florida Panthers, NTDP, Randy Hernandez, USA Hockey

Most kids who grow up in Miami, Florida, and dream of becoming professional athletes usually think football – the unofficial religion of the U.S. South – basketball, baseball, or even soccer.

Randy Hernandez thinks ice hockey. And his dream has taken him from a novice skater who first laced up a pair of skates at a cousin’s birthday party at age six to a member of the prestigious U.S. National Team Development Program’s Under-17 squad.

Randy Hernandez will play for the NTDP in the USHL (Photo/Rena Laverty).

Randy Hernandez will play for the NTDP in the USHL (Photo/Rena Laverty).

Hernandez was named to the team after finishing one full season of AAA hockey with the Florida Alliance in which he tallied 53 goals, 40 assists in 54 games at center. In addition to USA Hockey, Hernandez’s play caught the attention of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, an Ontario Hockey League major junior team. The Greyhounds drafted him in the 13th-round in April with the 261st overall pick.

“I don’t think I’m ready to play for major juniors right now,” Hernandez told me recently. “NTDP will help me grow as a player, and then I’ll make a decision between the OHL and college when I’m done.”

In the meantime, he is slated to play 35 games in the 2015-16 season for the U.S. National Under 17 team that competes in the United States Hockey League, a feeder league for several NCAA Division I hockey programs. The team is located in Plymouth. Mich., a long way from sunny Miami.

“My mom’s definitely a little bit nervous that I’m staying here with a new family, of course,” said Hernandez, 16. “But my family is happy for me because they know that this is what I want to do. I’m going to leave my parents and it’s going to be a little tough on me, but this is obviously the sport that I want to play and I want to get as far as I can in it. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

In many ways, Hernandez’s ascension in hockey is the typical All-American story of a kid who falls in love with the game and chases the dream of playing in the National Hockey League.

But Randy Hernandez’s story is far from typical. He is the son of Cuban immigrants who arrived in Florida 20 years ago. His father, Roberto, is a trucker and his mother, Marlen, a stay-at-home parent.

His grandfather, Dr. Fernando Gonzalez, is a psychiatrist who came to Miami from Cuba via Spain in 1972. He was the one who took Hernandez to the birthday party at Miami’s Kendall Ice Arena, where he immediately fell in love with skating.

“My grandfather, he actually pushed me to play hockey – he wanted me to try a new sport,” Hernandez recalled. “He’s the one who helps me out with hockey. He’s gone to all my games, he’s really supportive of me. He’s also paid for my hockey, and I’m really grateful for that.”

After a big season of AAA hockey in Florida, Randy Hernandez will play two seasons for the NTDP team in Plymouth, Michigan (Photo/Rena Laverty).

After a big season of AAA hockey in Florida, Randy Hernandez will play two seasons for the NTDP team in Plymouth, Michigan (Photo/Rena Laverty).

After the birthday party, Gonzalez enrolled his grandson in skating lessons. Hernandez’s progress on the ice was noticed by coaches of the AA Miami Toros and they approached Gonzalez about his grandson give hockey a try.

“I didn’t even know hockey existed,” Gonzalez recalled. “I was a fan of baseball.”

Hernandez said he quickly took to hockey and started to notice that by age 8 he was a little faster than the other players.

“When I was 12 or 13 and when I started going up North with my Florida team to play against AAA teams, that’s when I thought I might have a shot” at a pro career, he said.

In March, Hernandez was invited to the NTDP’s evaluation camp, where he skated with players from hockey powerhouses like Massachusetts’ Cushing Academy, Minnesota’s Shattuck-St. Mary’s School, Michigan’s Compuware minor midget program, and Philadelphia’s Team Comcast minor midget team.

John Arceo, a Miami Toros coach, said he wasn’t surprised that Hernandez was able to compete with players from New England and Minnesota, despite coming from the land of palm trees, South Beach and KC & the Sunshine Band.

“He has a professional hockey player’s work ethic,”  Arceo told me. “He’s the first kid on the ice, the first kid in drills, the first kid in off-ice training. Even as a 10-year-old, he had that ethic.”

And these days, his rise has parts of Miami talking. Octavio Sequera, a reporter for ESPN Deportes Miami who does color analysis in Spanish for Florida Panthers broadcasts, calls Hernandez’s move to the national development team “huge.”

“For Florida, especially the city of Miami, it means a lot because he’s the first one, the first one from the Kendall Ice Arena, the South Florida area, to be selected for USA Hockey,” Sequera told me. “He will be like a pioneer, in that sense. Randy will be the first Cuban – I say Cuban because of his parents – to be selected from Miami.”

Sequera said that Hernandez’s selection to the NTDP shows that hockey is gaining traction in South Florida’s Hispanic community, fueled by the Panthers. Last season, the broadcast seven games in Spanish. It will carry all 41 home games in Spanish for the 2015-16 season. The Panthers have one Hispanic player, Cuban-American goaltender Al Montoya.

“Here at ESPN Deportes we’re working on a campaign where we can actually bring more kids to the games, more Randy Hernandezes,” Sequera said. “There are a lot of other kids that see Randy as an example. Not only that, a lot of Hispanic parents are taking Randy’s story as an example.”

Sequera included. He enrolled his five-year-old son in a learn to play hockey program at the Kendall arena and he marvels at what he sees and hears on the ice and in the stands.

“The kids know the game, love the game, so now their parents are getting involved,” he told me. “You go to the bleachers, you go to the stands, you see a lot of people speaking in Spanish trying to learn about the game, and the kids are the ones teaching the parents what the game is all about. It’s very nice to see.”

 

 

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