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Monthly Archives: August 2016

U.S. and Canada rekindle fierce women’s hockey rivalry in Calgary series

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Darnell Nurse, Edmonton Oilers, Harvard University, Kia Nurse, New York Riveters, Princeton University, Sarah Nurse, University of Wisconsin

While hockey fans anxiously await next month’s World Cup of Hockey and the start of the 2016-17 National Hockey League season in October, there’s quality hockey underway in Calgary where women’s teams from the United States and Canada are resuming one of the fiercest rivalries in sports.

Forget Flyers-Penguins, Red Sox-Yankees, Cowboys and the Washington football team we shall not name, this rivalry between the world’s two best women’s hockey programs has more snarl, more grudge, more passion than any of them.

U of Wisconsin forward Sarah Nurse is one of Team Canada's captains (Photo/Hockey Canada).

U of Wisconsin forward Sarah Nurse is one of Team Canada’s captains (Photo/Hockey Canada).

There’s little friendly in the friendlies that the U.S. and Canadian Under-22 and Under-18 teams will play in the series, which started Wednesday night.

The series has all the ingredients, including talented players of color and, of course, a Nurse.

Forward Sarah Nurse is one of the captains for Canada’s U-22 squad. The Hamilton, Ont., native led the University of Wisconsin women’s team in scoring last season with 25 goals and 13 assists in 36 games.

She is the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse, who starred for Canada in the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship, and Kia Nurse, point guard for the 2015 and 2016 NCAA champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball teams. She played for Canada at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Sarah Nurse was the difference-maker in Canada’s 2-1 win over the U.S. Wednesday, scoring the game-winning goal at 19:37 of the second period.

Highlights from Team USA's 2-1 loss to Canada in the 2016 Women's Under-22 Series opener. #U22Serieshttps://t.co/8AiSyqqsH4

— USA Hockey (@usahockey) August 18, 2016

Boston University’s Victoria Bach opened the scoring with a goal at 8:03 in the second. Harvard University Forward Sydney Daniels scored for the U.S. at 02:41 of the third period.

Canada's U-22 team goes up against its U.S. counterpart in Calgary. Sarah Nurse, fourth from the right. Katilin Tse, second row, seventh from the left.

Canada’s U-22 team goes up against its U.S. counterpart in Calgary. Sarah Nurse, fourth from the right. Katilin Tse, second row, seventh from the left.

Joining Nurse on Canada’s U-22 squad is Harvard defenseman Kaitlin

Harvard University defenseman Kaitlin Tse (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Harvard University defenseman Kaitlin Tse (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Tse, who registered an assist on Bach’s goal Wednesday night.  Tse played 32 games in 2015-16 as a freshman for the Crimson, tallying a goal and 10 assists.

She was a member of Canada’s Silver Medal-winning team at the 2015 IIHF Under-18 World Championship and the 2014 Canadian squad that defeated the U.S. in a three-game series in 2014

Like Nurse, she comes from an athletic family. Her older brother, Matthew Tse, plays for Hong Kong’s national lacrosse team.

USA Hockey National Women's U-22 team. Kelsey Koelzer. second row, fifth from the right. (Photo/Nancie Battaglia).

USA Hockey National Women’s U-22 team. Kelsey Koelzer. second row, fifth from the right. (Photo/Nancie Battaglia).

Princeton University's Kelsey Koelzer (Photo/Nancie Battaglia)

Princeton University’s Kelsey Koelzer (Photo/Nancie Battaglia)

Nurse and Tse will face Team USA’s Kelsey Koelzer, a defenseman from Princeton University. The junior from Horsham, Pa., notched 17 goals and 16 assists in 33 games for the Tigers last season and finished second on the team with 8 game-winning goals.

Her game balances with offense and defense: she took 122 shots and blocked 61 pucks last season. The New York Riveters chose Koelzer in the first round of the 2016  National Women’s Hockey League Draft last month.

Defenseman Avery Mitchell is representing Canada

Defenseman Avery Mitchell (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Defenseman Avery Mitchell (Photo/Hockey Canada).

on its U-18 squad. She’s a blue-liner for the Toronto Jr. Aeros of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League.

Mitchell tallied 3 goals and 11 assists in 34 games for the Aeros last season. She collected a Bronze Medal playing for Ontario Blue at the 2015 National Women’s Under-18 Championship in Huntsville, Ont.

She’s committed to play hockey at New York’s Clarkson University in 2017-18. Clarkson has three current and former players on Team Canada’s rosters.

Canada's 2016 Under-18 women's team faces the United States in a three-game series in Calgary. Defenseman Avery Mitchell is the fifth person from the left, back row.

Canada’s 2016 Under-18 women’s team faces the United States in a three-game series in Calgary. Defenseman Avery Mitchell is the fifth person from the left, back row.

 

 

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Sudarshan Maharaj named Anaheim Ducks’ new goaltending coach

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Anaheim Ducks, Bruce Boudreau, John Gibson, Minnesota Wild, San Diego Gulls, Sudarshan Maharaj

Anaheim Ducks' new goalie coach Sudarshan Maharaj.

Anaheim Ducks’ new goalie coach Sudarshan Maharaj.

Sudarshan Maharaj, whose passion for hockey began when an NHL player who would later become his boss tossed him a puck at a game decades ago, is the new goalie coach for the Anaheim Ducks.

The team tapped Maharaj to replace former NHL netminder Dwayne Roloson, who stepped down from the coaching job earlier this summer.

A native of Trinidad, Maharaj has been with the Ducks organization since the 2013-14 season. He served as a goaltendting consultant working primarily with the San Diego Gulls, the Ducks’ American Hockey League farm team that relocated from Norfolk, Va., last season.

Under his tutelage,  Gulls goaltenders posted a 39-23-8 record, a 2.87 goals-against average, a .906 save percentage, and a spot in the AHL’s Calder Cup Playoffs. John Gibson, one of Maharaj’s former Gulls netminders, is poised to be the Ducks top goaltender for the 2016-17 season.

Maharaj is a veteran coach. He was the New York Islanders goalie coach from 2003 to 2006 and goaltending consultant for the team from 2009 to 2012. He also helped develop that National Goaltending Training Program for Hockey Canada from 2005-07.

In a hockey playing and coaching career that spans more than three decades, Maharaj has coached Montreal Canadiens backup goalie Al Montoya and former NHLers Kevin Weekes, Rick DiPietro, Joey MacDonald, Steve Valiquette, Martin Biron, and Roloson.

Maharaj attended Toronto’s York University and was a member of its 1984-85 championship hockey team. Afterwards, he played professionally in Sweden from 1985 to 1991. He enjoyed playing in Sweden, but living there wasn’t without its racial difficulties, including having his car set ablaze.

“One of the young lads didn’t particularly like the color of my skin, me being in the town, and who I was associating with and all that,” Maharaj told me last year. “So he decided to make a bonfire that night.”

Maharaj is one of hockey’s great six degrees of separation stories. His family moved from Trinidad to Toronto when he was about six years old. He went to his first National Hockey League game at the old Maple Leafs Gardens and stood by the low glass, wide-eyed as the Toronto Maple Leafs skated through their pregame warm-up.

Sudarshan Maharaj, left, gets promoted from the Ducks organization's' goaltending consultant to the full-time goalie coach for the NHL team.

Sudarshan Maharaj, left, gets promoted from the Ducks organization’s’ goaltending consultant to the full-time goalie coach for the NHL team.

As the Leafs left the ice, a player tossed him a puck – a moment that made Maharaj realize that hockey was the game for him.The Leafs player was Bruce Boudreau who became the Ducks’ head coach in 2011-12.

As goalie consultant for the organization, Maharaj helped evaluate, train, and educate goalies for the man who triggered his love for the game decades earlier.

“I told Bruce that story,” Maharaj told me last November. “He was shocked that I remembered. I said ‘Are you crazy? That’s a life-changing moment. It was one of my greatest experiences. My very first hockey game and a Toronto Maple Leafs player dropped a puck for me.’ To this day, if I ever see a young child in the stands I’ll always throw a puck.”

Alas, “Sudsie” and “Gabby” won’t be reunited in Anaheim. The Ducks dismissed Boudreau in April after the team lost a Stanley Cup Playoffs Game 7 for the fourth straight season. He’s now head coach of the Minnesota Wild .

 

 

 

 

 

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Black athletes at 2016 Olympics shattering the myth of ‘Sports that we don’t do’

13 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2016 Winter Olympics, Daryl Homer, hijab, Muslim, Rio de Janeiro, Simone Biles, Simone Manuel

You’d think ice hockey and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro would be on opposite ends of the sports spectrum.

But, like hockey, the 2016 Summer Games are helping chip away the hard-dying myth that black athletes don’t excel in the so-called non-traditional sports associated more with white players.

Rio has been a splash party, a sabre-rattling, shot-blocking celebration of black athletes who are showing  the world that we are more to sport than football, basketball, and track and field.

From swimmer Simone Manuel adding to the Olympic pool’s water level with her Gold Medal tears of joy to Daryl Homer’s sabre-waving Silver Medal victory dance, it’s been fun – and inspiring – to watch folks thrive in the supposed “Sports That We Don’t Do.”

So what have we learned in Rio?

That black women can swim – and win.

Sugar Land, Texas’ Simone Manuel crushed it in women’s 100 meters on Thursday, becoming the first African-American woman ever to win an individual swimming Gold Medal. She added more Olympic hardware with a Silver Medal in the 50 meter freestyle swim Saturday.

Unfortunately, her feat comes as many Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States have shuttered their NCAA swim teams.

North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University discontinued its program earlier this year, leaving Washington, D.C.’ Howard University as the nation’s only black college with an NCAA Division I swim program.

Overall, only 180 African-American women among 12,428 female swimmers and 214 African-American men among 9,715 male swimmers competed at the collegiate level in 2014-15, according to NCAA figures.

Manuel is aware of  her place in history. She told USA Today that “Coming into (Thursday’s) race, I tried to take the weight of the black community off my shoulders as it is something I carry with me being in this position.”

“But I do hope it kind of goes away,” she added. “I am super glad with the fact I can be an inspiration to others and hopefully diversify the sport, but at the same time I would like there to be a day when there are more of us and it’s not ‘Simone, the black swimmer.’”

Embed from Getty Images

 

That black women can float –  and do a pretty darn good Dikembe Mutombo “Not in my House” imitation in the process.

Miami, Florida’s Ashleigh Johnson is backstopping the U.S. women’s water polo team, which plays a quarterfinals match against Brazil on Monday.

Embed from Getty Images

 

That black women can fly.

Simone Biles. ‘Nuff said.

Embed from Getty Images

 

That black men can thrust and parry, too.

Daryl Homer won the first U.S. men’s Silver Medal in individual sabre in 112 years. The Virgin Islands native and Bronx, N.Y., resident also became the first American to medal in fencing since the 1984 Games.

Embed from Getty Images

 

That you can be true to your sport and your faith.

Ibtihaj Muhammad arrived in Rio as one of the most decorated women in fencing – ranked seventh internationally, a three-time NCAA All-American (2004,2005, 2006), and the 2012 Muslim Sportswoman of the Year.

She also arrived wearing a hijab, becoming the first U.S. female athlete to compete in the head covering worn by some Muslim women. The 30-year-old Duke University graduate was eliminated in the women’s individual sabre competition, but helped the U.S. women’s team advance to the semifinals Saturday with a 45-43 win over Poland.

Embed from Getty Images

 

 

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John Saunders, ESPN broadcaster, hockey player, dies at age 61

11 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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ESPN, John Saunders, Ryerson Polytechnical

I didn’t know John Saunders, the popular ESPN broadcaster who recently passed away,  particularly well. But every time I saw him, it felt like running into an old friend.

We were in Baltimore together in the 1980s- Saunders a popular sports anchor for WMAR-TV and me a reporter for the late, great Evening Sun newspaper. When we saw each other at functions or games, we’d speak a language that few, if any other, black folks in Baltimore spoke: hockey.

Embed from Getty Images

 

We’d briefly chat about what was going on in the National Hockey League, even talk about the doings of the minor league Baltimore Skipjacks hockey team.

Saunders knew his hockey history because he was part of it. Born in Canada, he was an all-star defenseman in Montreal’s junior hockey leagues. He played for Western Michigan University in the 1970s before he transferred to what’s now called Ryerson University in Toronto.

John Saunders, @nycneil and Bernie Saunders back at WMU. Three brothers and three best friends. #JohnSaunders pic.twitter.com/oHRSpnC0Zn

— Matthew Countryman (@_MattCountryman) August 11, 2016

He played briefly with his brother, Bernie, who went on to play 10 games for the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques, now the Colorado Avalanche, between 1979 and 1981.

Hockey helped lead John Saunders to Ryerson, the place where he fell in love with broadcasting. He developed into one of broadcasting’s best with an easily recognizable voice and easy on-air style that made TV viewers feel as comfortable as their favorite couch.

John Saunders on the 1977 Central Division Champion Ryerson Rams. #RIP pic.twitter.com/bnZzvpFCxv

— Andrew Ungvari (@DrewUnga) August 10, 2016

He was a versatile, knowledgeable presence on-air whether it was anchoring ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” working NCAA college basketball contests, doing WNBA games, hosting Stanley Cup Playoffs coverage, or moderating ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” show.

“John was an extraordinary talent and his friendly, informative style has been a warm welcome to sports fans for decades,” John Skipper, president of ESPN and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks, said in a statement. “He was one of the most significant and influential members of the ESPN family, as a colleague and mentor, and he will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this extremely difficult time.”

NHL Network analyst and former New York Rangers General Manager Neil Smith – the mustachioed hockey player pictured with John and Bernie Saunders in the Western Michigan hockey photo -took John Saunders’ death especially hard, tweeting that “Life will never be the same” with his passing.

“One of the saddest days of my life today as I grieve suddenly losing my best friend of 42 years, John Saunders,” Smith tweeted.

Our condolences go out to the family and friends of John Saunders. pic.twitter.com/grN3U6Pjf2

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) August 10, 2016

The cause of Saunders’ death was unknown Wednesday. Although he traveled to Washington last week for the National Association of Black Journalists convention, the Saunders family said in a statement that “John wasn’t feeling well physically in recent days and sadly, he was unresponsive earlier this morning.”

My last photo with John Saunders always laughing together. 42 years best friends, how lucky am I? pic.twitter.com/SEF0rmtAii

— Neil Smith (@nycneil) August 11, 2016

“We appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers for our cherished father, husband, brother and uncle,” his family said.

 

 

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In Rio, Nurse family seeks more hardware

06 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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basketball, Darnell Nurse, Edmonton Oilers, Kia Nurse, University of Connecticut

The never-ending sports tour for the Nurse family – one of Canada’s most athletic and competitive clans – continues.

Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse.

Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse.

Kia Nurse, the sister of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse, looks to up her bragging rights over her big bro by bringing home an Olympic medal from Rio de Janeiro as a member of Canada’s basketball team.

“Obviously we have the goal to go in there and get a medal,” she told Canada’s 570 News. “I think need to play really hard together and peak at the right time. So I see our success as playing our best basketball over the last four years at the Olympics.”

Kia’s one of the Great White North’s best basketball players and one of the best collegiate players in the United States. She helped guide the University of Connecticut’s storied women’s basketball team to NCAA championships last season and in 2015.

Olympian Overview: Kia Nurse (@KayNurse11)
Read: https://t.co/SlBIRdJaBS #weareteamcanada pic.twitter.com/ksOplavSQx

— Canada Basketball (@CanBball) August 6, 2016

She was the Most Valuable Player at the 2015 FIBA Americas Women’s Championship. Richard Nurse describes his tough-as-nails point guard daughter’s game with an almost hockey reverence.

“Besides being extremely skilled, she’s a nasty piece of business,” he once told me.

Darnell is no slouch in the championship department. He was a major factor in Team Canada winning the Gold Medal in the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship.

opening ceremony photoshoot ✅ #Rio2016 🇨🇦👊🏽😈 pic.twitter.com/O4uk0bGEH9

— Kia Nurse (@KayNurse11) August 5, 2016

Kia and Darnell come from a highly athletic family. Father Richard Nurse was a wide receiver for the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats; his wife, Cathy, was a stellar basketball player for Canada’s McMaster University.

With the games starting this weekend, couldn't be more proud of my little sister playing in her… https://t.co/c7oA0PmyA8

— Darnell Nurse (@drtwofive) August 5, 2016

Their older daughter, Tamika, played basketball at the University of Oregon and Bowling Green State University. Richard Nurse’s brother, Roger, was a standout lacrosse player in Canada. Their sister, Raquel, was a Syracuse University hoops standout and is married to former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Sarah Nurse, daughter of Roger Nurse and cousin of Kia and Darnell, is a forward on the University of Wisconsin’s women’s hockey team that played in the 2016 NCAA Women’s Frozen Four tournament.

 

 

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The Joel Ward hockey story – by writer Joel Ward

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Joel Ward, Nashville Predators, San Jose Sharks, Washington Capitals

San Jose Sharks forward Joel Ward

San Jose Sharks forward Joel Ward

More often than not, no one can tell your story better than you can.

Catching up on my summer hockey reading, I came across this marvelous piece on the fascinating, deeply moving, hockey and life journey of San Jose Sharks forward Joel Ward in  The Players’ Tribune. The author? Joel Ward. Give the story a read.

"Hockey saved me."@JRandalWard42 on his father's tragic passing and the long road he took to the @NHL. https://t.co/OCH7vtbYmk

— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) July 31, 2016

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Recent Posts

  • 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
  • Hockey’s diversity in pictures from pee wee to the professional leagues

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