Monthly Archives: October 2017

Richard Park seeks Winter Olympics ‘Miracle’ for South Korea’s hockey team

31 Tuesday Oct 2017

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Richard Park won’t say that South Korea’s men’s ice hockey team will win a medal in its Olympic debut at the 2018 Winter Games in February. But….

South Korean men’s hockey team Assistant Coach Richard Park. Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn/
Minnesota Wild

“It’s a short tournament and anything can happen,” Park told me recently. “You use the word ‘miracle,’ you think of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, the ‘Miracle on Ice.’ It’s happen before. If we can come close to matching that, or even duplicating it, it will be an amazing accomplishment.”

It’s been an amazing hockey journey for Park, a retired forward who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota Wild, Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders.

The journey has come full circle for Park. He’s returned to the country of his birth to serve as assistant director and assistant coach for a South Korean men’s team that will compete in its first Winter Olympics when it takes to the Gangneung Hockey Center ice in PyeongChang, South Korea, on Feb. 15 to face the Czech Republic.

Park discusses South Korea’s upcoming Olympic experience, the rise of hockey in Asia, and reflects on his NHL career in the latest Color of Hockey podcast.

While Park won’t predict a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal for South Korea, he says that the 2018 Olympic hockey tournament will be dramatically different from previous Winter Games because the NHL isn’t releasing its players to compete for their countries.

With no Sidney Crosby for Canada, no Patrick Kane, for the United States, no Alex Ovechkin for Russia, and no Henrik Lundqvist  for Sweden, the tournament could be ripe for a surprise.

“It doesn’t directly have an affect on us like other countries,” Park said of the absence of NHL superstars. “But it does have an affect on us because it changes the playing field for us. We’ll see. Hopefully we can turn that into an advantage.”

South Korea has already surprised the hockey world. Under Head Coach Jim Paek and Park, the team finished second at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship Division I Group A tournament in Kiev in April.

Richard Park was a forward for the Minnesota Wild for three seasons and is currently a development coach for the team (Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn/Minnesota Wild).

The showing earned South Korea a promotion to the IIHF’s top division, joining the ranks of the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other hockey powers.

“Korea has never ever been close, let alone in the top division in the world of hockey,”  Park said. “It’s huge. It’s big, it’s never been done before.”

Park’s team now faces the daunting task of trying to win in Group A at the Olympic hockey tournament, a bracket that includes powerhouses Canada and the Czech Republic and always pesky Switzerland.

“It’s really the first time we’ll be playing at that caliber,” Park told me. “We’ll do okay.”

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

 

‘Soul on Ice’ movie resonates with minority hockey legends in England

27 Friday Oct 2017

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LONDON – They sat in the back of the movie theater last weekend, transfixed by Canadian filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future.”

“I felt like he was telling our story,” Brian Biddulph said after the London premiere of Mason’s award-winning documentary that chronicles the history, struggles, and growing impact of black players in North America and in the National Hockey League.

The movie spoke to Biddulph, a Londoner who played pro and semi-pro hockey in from 1982 to 2000. The rugged defenseman suffered through being called “Leroy” – after character Leroy Robinson from the 1980s hit movie and television show “Fame” – by white teammates at a Team Great Britain training camp.

It spoke to Charles Dacres, who had a lengthy playing career in the United Kingdom and is currently a director for the English Ice Hockey Association and a board member for Ice Hockey U.K., the kingdom’s governing body for the sport.

A scene in the film in which forward Val James, who was the NHL’s first U.S.-born black player, is showered with racial epithets by fans during a 1981 minor league game in Virginia took Dacres back to a racially unruly road game that he endured during his playing days.

There “was a mob of guys that were actually outside the changing room, baying for my blood, wanting me to come out,” Dacres recalled.

“We wound up being escorted out of that city – police escort out of the city,” he said. “I was the only black guy on the team. They were waiting for me on the exit route from the rink. We had to go out the back door. It probably was one of the worst moments of my life.”

It spoke to Mohammed Ashraff, a former Ice Hockey U.K. president. It spoke to Erskine Douglas, who captained and coached pro teams in England and served as the head of coaching for the EIHA.

It spoke to Eddie Joseph, a former semi-pro player who’s paying it forward hockey-wise through a “Hockey is for Everyone”-type program he runs at an East London rink.

U.K. minority hockey legends, left to right, Charles Dacres, Mohammed Ashraff, Brian Biddulph, London Deputy Mayor Matthew Ryder, Erskine Douglas, and Eddie Joseph at “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” screening in London.

The documentary also spoke to London Deputy Mayor Matthew Ryder, who marveled at the impact that black Canadians and Americans have had on hockey.

Ryder and the EIHA helped make the “Soul on Ice”  showing possible as part of the U.K.’s Black History Month activities. The deputy mayor came away from the screening with a lesson that the United Kingdom has a rich minority hockey history of its own.

Dacres said the plight of minority players in the United Kingdom has improved since the days that he, Ashraff, Douglas, Joseph, and Biddulph skated.

There’s still a long way to go, Dacres added. And bringing a film like “Soul on Ice” to England helps.

“It’s important to recognize that not only did this film raise awareness of black players in the NHL, it raised awareness of ice hockey in the UK and the impact that minorities face in trying to access a sport where the playing numbers of ethnic minorities is significantly less than one percent,” he said.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. And download the Color of Hockey podcast from iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

Harnarayan Singh adds masala to ‘Hockey Night in Canada’s’ Punjabi broadcast

17 Tuesday Oct 2017

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How much does Harnarayan Singh love hockey?

“My wife and I had our wedding at a hockey arena and we had a ceremonial face-off between her and I,” Singh told me recently. “Life-sized Stanley Cup cake, mini-hockey sticks with out names engraved for everyone, we had hockey cards of ourselves and the stats were cool. My wife was “Rookie of the Year” because it was her first year teaching. It was a hoot.”

Hockey is as big a part of Singh as his Sikh faith and Canadian heritage. He combines them all when he gets behind the mic and calls games for  “Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi Edition,” the sister broadcast to “Hockey Night in Canada.”

Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi Edition announcer Harnarayan Singh, right, with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

His classic call of the game-winning goal by then-Pittsburgh Penguins forward Nick Bonino in Game 1 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final made him a social media sensation and catapulted “Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi Edition” into the mainstream.

Singh isn’t an overnight sensation. He’s been calling games in Punjabi – Canada’s third-most spoken language behind English and French –  since 2008 as part of “Hockey Night in Canada’s” effort to develop a more diverse audience.

You can hear Singh converse about his career, growing up Sikh in Canada, and the impact of “Hockey Night’s” Punjabi broadcast on the nation’s South Asian community in the latest episode of the Color of Hockey podcast.

Singh has achieved what many people thought he couldn’t: to become a prominent face of  hockey while speaking Punjabi and wearing the turban and ample beard that signifies his heritage and faith.

“If this could happen to me, a guy from Brooks, Alberta, a small town in southern Alberta, and with how I look and with people telling me it was impossible, if my dream could come true, why can’t it for anyone else?” he said.

Still, Singh says he occasionally hears from viewers who challenge the need for a hockey broadcast beyond English or French.

“You do get these sorts of comments where a person, I think, might not understand where  we’re coming from and why we’re doing this,” he said. “But when you explain to them how this is benefiting the sport of hockey and how beneficial this is to grow the sport of hockey, I think some of those perspectives can be changed.”

Singh says he and his “Hockey Night” Punjabi crew bring the masala – a spiciness – to their broadcast that reflects their South Asian roots and connects with their audience.

And they’ve had to be creative to do it as several hockey words and phrases don’t translate in Punjabi. So Singh made up his own, including the popular “chapared shot,” using the Punjabi word for slap in the face to describe a slap shot.

The Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi Edition commentators. Left to right, Randip Janda, Harnarayan Singh, Harpreet Pandher, and Bhupinder Hundal.

“The Punjabi community, they love to laugh, they love their food, they love their music, they wear vibrant colors, they talk loud,” Singh told me. “We try to incorporate those community characteristics on our calls and have fun with it.”

In doing so, Singh and his crew are helping members of Canada’s growing South Asian community weave themselves into the fabric of the country. Hockey is, after all, as Canadian as it gets.

Indians make up nearly 4 percent of Canada’s overall population and Sikhs account for less than 1.5 percent of the population. Canada has the world’s second-largest Sikh population outside of India with over 455,000 with most of them living in British Columbia and the Toronto area.

“When we first began the show I don’t think anyone could have even imagine the impact it would have on the community,” he told me. “First and foremost, I think it made the community feel proud of themselves that they had made it as a part of Canadian society.

“There’s also been some cool stories from people who say that at their workplace, having hockey in Punjabi and understanding the sport, has helped develop better relationships and rapport at work,” he added. “They’re able to talk about last night’s game. I mean, hockey is that water cooler topic in Canada.”

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast at iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

 

 

 

An old school ex-player praises Tampa Bay Lightning’s J.T. Brown for ‘taking a stand’

09 Monday Oct 2017

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One thought raced through Bill Riley’s mind when he saw Tampa Bay Lightning forward J.T. Brown raise his fist in the air Saturday and become the first National Hockey League player to engage in a silent protest during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.

Yes!

Tampa Bay Lightning right wing J.T. Brown is the first NHL player to protest during the U.S. national anthem.

“I think it’s good that he took a stand,” Riley, who became the National Hockey League’s third black player when he skated for  the Washington Capitals in 1974-75, told me. “Something had to be done.”

Brown conducted his protest in Sunrise, Florida, before the Lightning faced the home team Florida Panthers.

Riley, 67, saw it on TV from his Nova Scotia home. He watches a lot of U.S. news when he’s at home and is unnerved by what he sees: a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., organized by neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan supporters;  a spate of high-profile killings of African-Americans by law enforcement officers from Ferguson, Missouri, to Staten Island, New York; and a president who seems more concerned by National Football League players taking knees to protest the treatment of African-Americans than the damage Hurricane Maria caused to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Trump lashed out at athletes who protest during the national anthem, accusing them of displaying a total disrespect for the American flag, a “total disrespect of our heritage, a total disrespect of everything that we stand for.”

Riley respectfully disagrees.

Bill Riley, the NHL’s third black player, played in an era when black players didn’t talk publicly about the racial abuse they endured, let alone speak out about political topics.

“They’re not trying to cause trouble. They’re doing things in a peaceful way,” he told me. “They’re not disrespecting the flag, like people are saying. They are not doing it to disrespect the flag. They’re just trying to make a point.”

This from a hard-nosed, old-school former player who skated in an era when black players rarely spoke out publicly about the racial abuse they endured from fans, opposing players, and even teammates. Forget about taking a political stand.

“A lot of stuff you had to pretend you didn’t hear,” Riley told me. “Because you didn’t want to become a problem because they’d get rid of you.”

Riley said he hopes that doesn’t happen to Brown. The 27-year-old right wing isn’t a superstar – he tallied only 3 goals and 3 assists in 64 games with the lightning in 2016-17. But he is a popular player and active in the Tampa Bay community, especially when it comes to introducing the area’s kids of color to hockey.

Brown has taken some heat from fans for his protest  Saturday. But he’s also received support from Riley and others in the hockey world.

Riley said Brown’s defiant stance Saturday was refreshing and he hopes other NHL players follow his lead.

“I’d like to see more of the white players stand with some of these black guys,” he told me.

Brown told The Tampa Bay Times Joe Smith  that he raised his fist because “I wanted to do something to show my support.”

“There are some issues that we have to talk about,” Brown told Smith. “In my mind, I’m just trying to bring awareness and any type of conversation we can get started would be great.”

He elaborated further in a lengthy tweet Sunday, saying “there comes a time when you cannot remain silent, hoping and wishing for change.”

“I also want to reiterate that this is not and never has been about about the military or disrespecting the flag,” he tweeted. “It is about police brutality, racial injustice, and inequality in this country.It is something that I and many others feel needs to be addressed. I love my country, but that doesn’t mean I cannot acknowledge that it is not perfect.”

Brown added that “I have been through my fair share of racism both on and off the ice.” He said he’s received death threats and racist comments since his protest.

Brown, the son of former Minnesota Vikings running back Ted Brown, hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind on matters of race and politics. In September, he reached into his pockets and donated $1,500 to help get a Confederate monument removed from Tampa’s downtown courthouse.

He criticized Columbus Blue Jackets Head Coach Mike Tortorella in September 2016 for  vowing to bench any player  any player on the U.S. World Cup of Hockey team who conducted a protest during the national anthem as former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick did last season.

“Wouldn’t benching a black man for taking a stance only further prove Kap’s point of oppression? But hey,” Brown wrote in a tweet that went viral.

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play.

P.K. Subban’s dad talks hockey, life and catfish on new Color of Hockey podcast

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

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Karl Subban thought he was done.

The proud papa of three black professional hockey players thought he was finished writing his first book, “How We Did It, The Subban Family Plan For Success In Hockey, School And Life.”

Then The Trade happened.

Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban.

The Montreal Canadiens swapped All-Star defenseman P.K. Subban to the Nashville Predators straight-up for All-Star defenseman Shea Weber.

The move shocked the hockey world, helped guide the Predators to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance, and sent Karl Subban scrambling to his computer to write another chapter for his book.

“Yeah, I had to write it,” Karl told me. “It was unbelievable. It was an unbelievable run to the Stanley Cup Final. I’ve never been through that before. It took me a long time to believe that we were there.”

The elder Subban  talks about his book, The Trade, the Predators’ Stanley Cup run, racism, and what it’s like raising three very talented hockey players in the first episode of the Color of Hockey podcast.

Our new podcast, like this blog, will tell the story of the history and growing impact of people of color in ice hockey at all levels and all aspects of the game – on the ice, off the ice, behind the bench, in the broadcast booth, and in the front office, wherever.

And what better lead-off guest than Karl, father of Pernell Karl (P.K.);  Malcolm, a goaltender and Boston Bruins 2012 first round draft pick who was waived by the B’s this week and claimed by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights; and Jordan, a 2013 Vancouver Canucks fourth-round draft pick who’s a defenseman for the Utica Comets, the Canucks’ American Hockey League franchise in Upstate New York.

P.K. tallied 10 goals and 30 assists in 66 games in his first season in Nashville. He had 2 goals and 10 assists in 22 playoff games.

Malcolm compiled an 11-14-5 record in 32 games for the Providence Bruins and posted a 2.41 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. He was winless in the AHL’s Calder Cup Playoffs with a 2.12 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage.

Jordan notched 16 goals and 20 assists in 65 regular season games last season for Utica. He had 2 goals and an assist in four AHL playoff contests.

Providence Bruins goaltender Malcolm Subban looks to work his way to the NHL (Photo/Alan Sullivan).

True to its title, “How We Did It” gives insight to how Karl and Maria Subban guided their boys through various levels of hockey – from lacing on their first pair of skates skates to hearing their names called at National Hockey League drafts.

“The African proverb, I use it in the book, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,'” Karl told me. “It also takes a village to raise an NHLer…to grow their potential. Maria and I can’t stand there and say ‘Look at us, we did it all by ourselves.'”

At 5-foot-9, defenseman Jordan Subban is out to prove that he belongs with big brother P.K. in the NHL (Photo/Lindsay A. Mogul/Utica Comets).

But the book is also deals with immigration – Karl’s family moved to Canada from Jamaica and Maria’s from Montserrat – education, and the ugly realities of racism, an issue that P.K. first confronted when he was an 8 year old playing minor hockey in Toronto.

It’s a lesson that Karl, a semi-retired Toronto public school principal, was sadden that his son learned so early.

“He came out of the dressing room crying. He said a boy on the ice called him the N-word,” Karl writes in the book. “We said there was no need to cry because it was only a word. We probably said something about ‘sticks and stones.’ There weren’t too many kids playing who looked like P.K., but now someone had communicated it to him in a way he didn’t like.”

He’s endured racist taunts and attitudes as a pro, most notably during the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs when so-called Bruins unleashed a torrent of hateful emails and social media posts after he scored two goals, including the double-overtime winner.

Embed from Getty Images

When confronted with racist ugliness, Karl says P.K. follows a bit of advice that he gave him: Don’t let them win.

“I’ve told P.K. it’s vital to change the channel, because if you ruminate over it, you can’t free yourself from it,” the elder Subban writes. “It does take practice, though – and P.K. has had a lot of practice.”

Karl had to change the channel when the Canadiens traded P.K.. Montreal was Karl’s team ever since he was a boy growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, watching the Canadiens’ French broadcast on TV, and dreaming of being Habs goaltender Ken Dryden.

As an adult, he thought there was nothing like seeing a game in hockey-mad Montreal. Then came Nashville.

“I didn’t think there was anything better until I got to Nashville, and then I said ‘Wow!'” he told me. “It’s so different and a great experience. It’s the music there, the environment. After the game, the honky tonks, the bars, the food, I love country music. And then we went on that (Stanley Cup) run, and the city, which is alive anyway 24/7, it was taken to another level.”

But Karl still can’t quite get used to what’s becoming a tradition in Nashville: fans tossing catfish onto the Bridgestone Arena ice.

“I just want to eat those catfish,” he told me. “There’s a restaurant where I go, they have this catfish thing and I love it. Like, I’m saying ‘please don’t throw them on the ice. Can you just give them to that restaurant I go to and have them prepare it the way they prepare it there.”

Follow the Color of Hockey on Facebook and Twitter @ColorOfHockey. Download the Color of Hockey podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.