Rod Braceful scores a coveted USA Hockey job. Assist to John Vanbiesbrouck

18 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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John Vanbiesbrouck, National Team Development Program, Rod Braceful, USA Hockey, USHL

Rod Braceful scored a plum job with USA Hockey. Give an assist to John Vanbiesbrouck.

Braceful, a 30-year-old former player from Detroit, Michigan, was named assistant director of player personnel for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program earlier this month.

Rod Braceful, assistant director of player personnel for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program.

Braceful, who was director of scouting last season for the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL, was the top choice from a large applicant pool for the NTDP job that he almost landed last season.

When Rick Comley Jr. left the assistant director of player personnel post to take an amateur scout position with the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes this season, Braceful jumped at the chance to reapply for the job.

“I told them that ‘I’m all in and I’m happy,'” Braceful said of his reaction when USA Hockey offered him the job. “It was a good call to have. There’s a lot of good, qualified people in the game looking for jobs, and there are not a lot of jobs.”

The NTDP position is more than just a job – it’s a launching pad. The last five assistant and chief player personnel directors have moved on to NHL jobs.

“Every person who really loves the game of hockey, of course, see themselves being part of the NHL, whether it’s playing or working,” Braceful said. “My playing career, which was short, I knew there was no way I could play there. But, of course, I’ve had thoughts of working there.”

Rod Braceful worked as director of scouting for John Vanbiesbrouck when he was general manager of the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks (Photo/Michael Caples/MiHockey).

Braceful’s resume spoke volumes to USA Hockey’s brain trust: a scouting director for a USHL team; Midwest hockey director for Legacy Global Sports, where he organized and led camps for Selects Hockey; a former coach in Michigan’s famed Little Caesars and Compuware youth hockey programs; a former player and coach at NCAA Division III New England College.

“The goal of the job is to identify, evaluate, educate top American players for our program,” Kevin Reiter, the NTDP’s director of player personnel. “He’s done that for numerous years.”

While Braceful’s credentials did a lot of the talking, Vanbiesbrouck, USA Hockey’s assistant executive director for hockey operations, also lobbied on his behalf.

Vanbiesbrouck, a former NHL All-Star goaltender, had first-hand knowledge of Braceful’s abilities because he was general manager of the Lumberjacks before taking the USA Hockey gig in May.

“He worked hand-in-hand with John last year in building that (Muskegon) team, so he had a familiarity with the league and the players and the talent needed in that league,” Reiter said. “Beezer was really an advocate for him, and rightfully so, he did a great job. But there was a lot more to our digging and our homework to make sure we were making the right choice.”

John Vanbiesbrouck, USA Hockey’s assistant executive director, recommended Rod Braceful for the assistant director of player personnel job with the National Team Development Program (Photo/USA Hockey).

Vanbiesbrouck gave Braceful one of the ultimate compliments in the sport, calling him “a good hockey person.”

“I wanted Kevin to keep an open mind, but I definitely recommended him,” Vanbiesbrouck told me. “I wanted Rob to get the job, for sure. He does great work, he’s very personable. People like Rod and that element in recruitment is important to the position.”

“I think he’s got a great knowledge for hockey, he knows the game well. I think that, in a lot of ways, we think of the game very similar,” Vanbiesbrouck added. “For a young to have the knowledge that he has and to be all-in is a good combination, and that’s why I categorize him as a hockey guy.”

Rod Braceful began playing recreation hockey as a kid in Detroit and played NCAA Division III hockey at New England College (Photo/Courtesy Rod Braceful).

USA Hockey’s hiring of Vanbiesbrouck was controversial. In 2003, when he was coach and general manager of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, Vanbiesbrouck called his then-19-year-old defenseman Trevor Daley the N-word.

Vanbiesbrouck, discussing the episode with The Athletic’s Scott Burnside in August, said that he’s sorry and regrets using the word. He added that the incident “hasn’t defined my life” and that he’s a “very inclusive person.”

“So you ask the question, what have you done, what have you done?” he told Burnside. “I’ve done a lot of things. No. 1 is I had to repent…and ask God for forgiveness because I live by faith and I violated my own principles. And I know that.”

Braceful said working in Muskegon with Vanbiesbrouck, a fellow Michigander, was “a fine” educational experience.

“He was a good person to work under just because he has so much knowledge of the game from all the different parts of it,” Braceful said. “He had done some work with USA Hockey in the past and present. He knew the ins and the outs in dealing with the USHL as well as what they do with USA Hockey. And he knows a lot of people. You know what? He taught me a lot, as well as a lot of other guys at Muskegon.”

Rod Braceful started playing hockey at a young age, but didn’t get serious about the game until high school (Photo/Courtesy Rod Braceful).

Braceful has also learned from a few hockey coaches of color, particularly Jason Payne, the first-year assistant coach of the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones, Jason McCrimmon, head coach and owner of Detroit’s Motor City Hawks of the U.S. Premier League, and Duante’ Abercrombie, the rookie head coach of the Washington Little Capitals 16U National Team, a youth program with a track record of developing players for junior, college and professional hockey teams.

He also can talk hockey with family. His older cousin, Cameron Burt, was a star player for NCAA Division I Rochester Institute of Technology from 2008-09 to 2011-12 and currently plays professionally in Slovakia.

Former Rochester Institute of Technology hockey star Cameron Burt is the cousin of Rod Braceful, the new assistant director of player personnel for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program.

“I’ve actually had the pleasure of knowing and learning from some older guys who were able to take me under their wings and be kind of distant mentors,” Braceful said. “There have been guys doing good things around. I think maybe now, they’re starting to be noticed.”

“They’re just trying to make their own way in the game, they just want to make sure they do a good job, they want to be the best,” he added. “And just keep working their way up the ladder.”

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

Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon play together on the same team – Kenya’s

15 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Colorado Avalanche, Kenya ice hockey, Nathan MacKinnon, Pittsburgh Penguins., Sidney Crosby, Tim Hortons

Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby and Colorado Avalanche sniper Nathan MacKinnon were traded – to Kenya.

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Sidney Crosby.

Crosby and MacKinnon donned the jerseys of the Kenya Ice Lions and skated with the 12-member team from the African nation in Toronto.

Tim Hortons helped arrange the Lions’ trip to Toronto and surprised the team with visits by Crosby and MacKinnon.

“It is a dream to not only have the chance to play in Canada, but to play – for the first time – in full gear alongside two of the greatest players of the game,” says Benard Azegere, the Ice Lions captain said in a statement about the event. “When we first started playing in Kenya, we didn’t even have full equipment, but now not only do we have that, we can say we’ve played a real game with some All-Star teammates.”

Crosby said that having Kenyan players on ice is further proof that Hockey is for Everyone.

“I was honored to be able to join the Ice Lions as they played their first game against another team,” Crosby said. “One of the things I love about hockey is how it’s able to reach so many people from so many countries around the world and bring them together.”

LOOK: Sidney Crosby, Nathan Mackinnon team up with Kenya's first hockey team for inaugural game https://t.co/SllmTYKLci pic.twitter.com/NrmPJXRFFR

— NFL Fan (@NFL_Commentary) October 15, 2018

Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon.

The Kenyan players skate twice a week at a rink at the Panari Sky Center Hotel in the capital of Nairobi, according to Adweek. There aren’t enough players in the African nation to put a second team on ice, so the Kenyan hadn’t faced another team until their trip to Canada.

In addition to bringing the ice Lions to Canada, Tim Hortons made a donation to Kenya’s youth hockey league to help the sport grow in that country.

“In Canada – and as a company – Hockey is part of our DNA,” Jorge Zaidan, Head of Marketing, Tim Hortons Canada said. “We are so inspired by the story of the Lions. Despite having no other teams to play against, the players on the Kenya Ice Lions’ passion for the game is unwavering. Their shared passion and love of the game knows no borders.”

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

New icemen cometh at ginormous sports facility in Washington Capitals’ backyard

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Alex Ovechkin, The College of William & Mary, The St. James, Washington Capitals

As former football players, Kendrick F. Ashton, Jr., and Craig A.A. Dixon never envisioned being on the same line with Washington Capitals super star Alex Ovechkin.

But there the two were, flanking Ovechkin in hockey face-off pose last year. But instead of sticks and hockey helmets, the makeshift line had shovels in their hands and hardhats on their heads.

Ovechkin was on hand for he groundbreaking of The St. James, a recently-opened 450,000 square-foot sports complex in Springfield, Virginia, co-founded by Ashton and Dixon, two young African-American entrepreneurs who dreamed – and succeeded – in building a gym on steroids.

The St. James co-founders Craig A.A. Dixon, left, and Kendrick F. Ashton, Jr., at one of the two NHL-sized ice rinks inside their 450,000 square-foot sports facility in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Hockey is front and center at the massive facility that includes a 50-meter Olympic-size pool, a three-story, 50,000-square-foot health club, four full-length basketball courts, eight squash courts, and a field house with a FIFA regulation-sized turf field.

The St. James features two NHL-sized ice rinks that offer an array of hockey, hockey coaching, and leagues for all playing levels in addition to ice-dancing, figure skating, and speedskating.

There are a handful of ice skating rinks in North America named after black people, but there are very few that are black-owned and operated.

The twin ice rinks at The St. James will help alleviate an ice shortage in the hockey-mad Washington, D.C., area.

Ashton, 42, and Dixon, 43, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., knew little about hockey before building their facility, but they’ve grown to love the game since.

“We walk in there all the time and we see these two gleaming, beautiful rinks, it just makes you want to get out on them,” Dixon said.

Enough for the co-founders and co-executive officers to lace up the skates for a few laps?

“No,” Dixon replied. “I know this is the Color of Hockey – I don’t know how to skate on hockey skates, but I plan to learn.”

“We’ve developed a real appreciation of the game and become quite passionate about it as fans,” Ashton added. “We’ve tempered our desire to hurt ourselves on the ice, we’re taking that slowly, but we will be out there.”

Kendrick f. Ashton, Jr., left, with Washington Capitals star forward Alex Ovechkin, and Craig A.A. Dixon at The St. James’ groundbreaking in 2017.

The twin rinks are a godsend in a D.C., Northern Virginia, Maryland area that has a voracious hockey-playing appetite – both youth and adult – and a severe rink shortage, exacerbated by a January 2017 fire that shuttered Maryland’s Tucker Road Ice Arena.

While access to the St. James’ rinks is largely based on facility membership, Ashton said “we are very much committed to and very interested in everybody having access to everything.”

“Whereas having kids of color may not be a particular focus point for other (rink) owners, I don’t know if it is or isn’t, it may not be, it certainly is for us,” Ashton added. “We’re going to do what we can to make sure that kids are exposed to the greatness of this game.”

Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin takes a skate on one of the rinks at The St. James.

And the Capitals winning the Stanley Cup, with the help of forward Devante Smith-Pelly’s playoff heroics, has increased the demand for ice time in the area.

“The excitement that that run created in this town was palpable” Dixon said. “And that was across demographics, across races, across ages because everyone loves a champion. When they won the Cup and you looked at the scenes from news broadcasts of people out in the streets, it was the whole city. It wasn’t just one particular group of people out there celebrating that championship, and I think that is the new hockey fan in this town and, I’m sure, in many towns across the country.”

Craig A.A. Dixon, left, with Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin and Kendrick F. Ashton, Jr., at The St. James’ opening.

Ashton and Dixon aren’t strangers to rough-and-tumble sports. Ashton played football for The College of William & Mary and Dixon played high school football while growing up in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The two men developed a friendship while students W&M, forged by their athletic experiences growing up in areas where quality facilities weren’t always accessible. That, and their shared love of business, led to the St. James concept.

“When we were young people, we were multi-sport athletes, and we were fairly serious about it, and we couldn’t quite understand why we very often ran into issues playing sports,” Ashton said. “We’re sure there are many kids of our generation who had trouble getting on ice, had trouble getting in pools.”

So Ashton and Dixon are trying to rectify that 450,000 square feet at a time. The Springfield mega-complex won’t be a one-and-done if its co-founders have their way. They’ve already purchased land in the northern Chicago suburbs and hope to have a similar facility built there in 2021.

“We’re looking at all the major markets in the country,” Ashton said. “We’re actively engaged in trying to lock down great sites in every one of them.”

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

Willie O’Ree, hockey history-maker, tours Smithsonian’s African American museum

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Boston Bruins, Gary Bettman, Hockey Hall of Fame, Hockey is for Everyone, Montreal Canadiens, Willie O'Ree

The history-maker took a walk through history Wednesday.

Willie O’Ree, the National Hockey League’s first black player and soon-to-be Hockey Hall of Fame inductee, visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., for the first time.

O’Ree, along with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, saw artifacts and exhibits that chronicle the black experience from slavery to the segregationist Jim Crow period to the civil rights era to today’s times.

O’Ree, the NHL’s diversity ambassador for the league’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative, eyed tributes to game-changers like him, including a statue of a sliding Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Future Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Willie O’Ree examines a statue honoring baseball great Jackie Robinson at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (Photo/Anthony Wright/National Museum of African American History and Culture).

“What black people had to go through then,” O’Ree, 82, told me. “We take a lot of things for granted but, boy, if you went through that museum it would open your eyes up – it definitely would.”

The tour left Bettman awed and inspired as well.

“I thought it was amazing,” the commissioner said. “I’m a history buff, there is an incredible amount that I learned, there’s more to be learned, and I look forward to going back.”

Willie O’Ree, left, and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman listen to Damion Thomas, sports curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, discuss an exhibit in the facility (Photo/Anthony Wright/National Museum of African American History and Culture).

The commissioner noticed one thing that the museum is missing: hockey.

“Among the sports, hockey doesn’t have a presence and, perhaps, we’d like to see one,” Bettman said. “I think we have a story to tell as well. And most people aren’t aware of that story. And to have an opportunity to tell it as part of the overall museum…having a place among the other sports would not only be appropriate but would be good for people to know.”

Damion Thomas, the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s sports curator, said hockey “is an area we would like to collect around and it’s something that we’re planning on doing in the future.”

Thomas was thrilled to have living history in the museum in the form of O’Ree, who became the NHL’s first black player on Jan. 18, 1958, when he skated for the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens in the old Montreal Forum.

“I love sharing this history with everyone but it takes on a different meaning when you’re able to share this history with a history-maker and to be able to see how he responds to moments that he lived through and how he’s able to contextualize his own experiences within this much larger moment and space in time,” Thomas said.

Willie O’Ree made history when he entered the NHL with the Boston Bruins in January 1958.

He added: “One great things is that when you come to our museum it helps provide context to a lot of things Willie O’Ree went through and a lot of the challenges that he faced and how different aspects of society responded to those challenges.”

Embed from Getty Images

O’Ree will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Nov. 12, along with Bettman, former New Jersey Devils goaltending great Martin Brodeur,Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis, Russian hockey star Alexander Yakushev, Canadian women’s hockey star Jayna Hefford.

O’Ree, a right wing from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, only played 45 NHL games over two seasons with the Bruins, tallying 4 goals and 10 assists.

He enjoyed a long and productive minor league career, finishing as the 16th all-time leading scorer in the old Western Hockey League with 328 goals and 311 assists in 785 games, despite being blind in his right eye.

But O’Ree became Hall-worthy for his accomplishments off the ice. He has helped cultivate a generation of minority hockey players and fans by working tirelessly as the NHL’s Diversity Ambassador since 1996, traveling across the United States and Canada to visit youth hockey programs affiliated with the NHL’s “Hockey is for Everyone” initiative.

O’Ree will become the Hall’s third black member, joining five-time Stanley Cup champion goaltender Grant Fuhr and women’s hockey superstar Angela James.

Video by Thomas Mobley/National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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

Take a look at the players of color who’ve made NHL 2018-19 team rosters

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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The National Hockey League’s 31 teams have set their rosters ahead of the 2018-19 season’s opening day Wednesday.

Some 33 payers of color have made the cut to opening day. The league welcomes some fresh new faces, like diminutive scoring dynamo Kailer Yamamoto of the Edmonton Oilers, while familiar veterans like Nashville Predators defenseman and EA Sports NHL 19 cover athlete P.K. Subban, return to their teams.

Some are goal-scorers, some are goaltenders, some are grinders. Here’s a look at some of the NHL players of color you’ll see this season.

Note: Some players, such as Columbia Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones and New York Rangers center Cristoval “Boo” Nieves won’t be on the ice for a while. Jones is out with a knee injury. Nieves is recovering from a concussion: