Cliff Pu, the hustling Ontario Hockey League center with the firm handshake, was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the third round of the 2016 NHL Draft in Buffalo. The selection, the 69th overall, drew loud cheers from fans in the arena.
“It’s pretty cool,” he told the Color of Hockey after donning a hometown Sabres jersey. “I didn’t really expect it, to hear them cheer. It’s pretty cool.”
Cliff Pu’s combination of speed, grit, and hockey smarts was an irresistible package for the Buffalo Sabres (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
Pu, the son of a Chinese couple who moved to Canada, excelled for the London Knights on a swift-skating line with Max Jones, drafted in the first round, by the Anaheim Ducks.
The Knights, helped by Pu’s grit and speed, won the Memorial Cup as the best Canadian junior team in 2016. Pu will return for another season in London, and he hopes Jones will, too.
Asked if it was particularly special day given his heritage, he noted that there haven’t been many Asian players and he hoped to be one of the first to make a mark in the NHL.
“I like to use my speed to my advantage — forecheck, backcheck — it’s one of my best attributes,” said Pu, a rangy 6-foot-1 and 188 pounds.
ISS Hockey identified Pu as a prime sleeper pick. “Like this kid more every time we see him,” the ISS reported. “One of the most improved players in the OHL. Really like his size, speed and hockey sense. Does all the little things that win games.”
Pu notched 12 goals, 19 assists, and 24 penalty minutes in 63 regular season games for the Knights. He became a beast in the OHL playoffs, tallying 8 goals and 5 assists in 18 games. His line provided speed and relentless forechecking that took away time and space from opposing defenses.
Pu gained attention in January by celebrating a goal in an unusual fashion in today’s game – with a handshake. Killing a penalty against Flint, Pu followed Jones up ice and tucked a rebound into the net. Then he went off the map, taking off a glove and offering his linemate a shake. Just to mix things up, he said.
Another handshake this season? He grinned. “We’ll see.”
The Color of Hockey’s Lew Serviss wrote this story.
The brain trust of the Buffalo Sabres has lots of talent down on the farm with the AHL Rochester Americans who’ll soon join Jack Eichel and sniper Evander Kane in terrorizing NHL goaltenders.
Forwards Justin Bailey, Nick Baptiste, and Evan Rodrigues are biding their time and getting better with the Americans. If they don’t make the Sabres roster in 2016-17, they’ll have company in Rochester: WHL Kelowna Rockets defenseman Devante Stephens.
Kelowna builds defensemen – Nashville Predators’Shea Weber, Chicago Blackhawks’Duncan Keith and Washington Capitals 2013 second round draft pick Madison Bowey.
Kelowna Rockets defenseman Devante Stephens hopes to be part of the Buffalo Sabres rebuilding process after the team drafted him in 2015 (Photo by Marissa Baecker/Kelowna Rockets).
The Sabres think they have another Kelowna defensive stud in Stephens, who was chosen in the fifth round with the 122nd overall pick. He scored 2 goals and 9 assists in 72 regular season games for the Rockets in 2015-16.
Edmonton feels it got a steal of the 2015 draft when the team selected Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Ethan Bear in the fifth round with the 124th pick. The 19-year-old high-scoring Ochapowace First Nation member tallied 19 goals and 46 assists in 69 regular season games.
He’s maintained his scoring touch in the WHL playoffs with 3 goals and 8 assists in 11 games. In March, he was named a WHL Western Conference first-team all-star. If all goes well, the Oilers in the not-too-distant-future will have a defensive lineup that includes Bear, Caleb Jones and 2013 first-round pick Darnell Nurse.
Seattle Thunderbirds’ D-man Ethan Bear hopes to patrol the Edmonton Oilers blue line someday (Photo/Brian Liesse/Seattle Thunderbirds).
If all goes as defenseman Andong “Misha” Song and about a billion other folks in China hope, he’ll be patrolling the blue line for his country in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Song became the NHL’s first draft pick born in China when the New York Islanders chose him in the 172nd over pick in the sixth round in 2015.
New York Islanders draftee Andong Song wants to play in the NHL – and in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing (Photo/David Fricke/Phillips Academy).
He skated for Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., where he had 1 goal and 7 assists in 27 games in 2015-16. Song is doing for hockey in China what Yao Ming did for basketball – helping trigger interest in a sport that many in the country previously hadn’t watched or played.
“When Misha Song got drafted, it just blew up,” Wei Zhong, a friend of Song’s who plays hockey for Hinsdale Central High School in Illinois told The New York Times in January. “He inspired all these kids to start playing , and some of my friends who were with hockey before to dust off their skates and start playing again.”
The Tampa Bay Lightning went for toughness when it drafted Bokondji Imama in 2015.
Bokondji Imama, who was chosen by the Tampa BayLightning in the sixth round with the 180th overall pick in 2015, is poised to punch and hit his way to the NHL.
The Montreal-born son of immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Imama, 19, is one of the most-feared enforcers in the QMJHL and hardest body checkers. He had 7 goals, 12 assists and 86 penalty minutes in 48 games for the Saint John Sea Dogs.
He would have had more PIMs but he was suspended 15 games by the QMJHL in December for leaving the bench to defend a 15-year-old teammate who was being roughed up by a 20-year-old member of the Halifax Mooseheads.
Though the league punished Imama, Sea Dogs management praiseed him for his actions.
“As an organization, we fully support Boko through this difficult situation,” Sea Dogs General Manager Darrell Young said in a statement in December. “He sacrificed himself to come to the aid of a young teammate. Once again, he proved to be the ultimate teammate and team comes first with us. Boko will be a big loss for our hockey club. He is a valuable member of our team both on and off the ice.”
Lots of congratulations to go around for last week’s hockey exploits.
Sabres forward Evan Rodrigues gets his first NHL goal in his second game.
First, congrats to Buffalo Sabres forward Evan Rodrigues. We profiled him earlier in the National Hockey League season as part of a look at the talented players of color on the Rochester Americans, the Sabres American Hockey League farm team.
The Sabres called Rodrigues up and the former Boston University standout responded by scoring his first NHL goal Saturday in his second game in the bigs.
The tally came against the New York Islanders and rookie goaltender Christopher Gibson, another player of color who earned plaudits last week when he backstopped a 4-3 comeback overtime victory against the Washington Capitals in his first NHL start.
Gibson was unable to pull off a second miracle Saturday and he lost to the Sabres 4-3 in overtime.
Hockey high-fives also go to Akeem Adesiji, Prasanthan Aruchunan, Katherine Baker, and Ava Olsen, the 2016 recipients of NHL/Thurgood Marshall College Fund academic scholarships.
The NHL and TMCF have partnered to award scholarships to academically-eligible participants of the league’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative since 2012.
“These outstanding young people are skating toward a bright future,” NHL CommissionerGary Bettman said. “While Hockey is for Everyone programs provide the structure, discipline and life lessons that our sport teaches so well, each of our scholarship winners was committed to proving the path to higher education can be paved with ice.”
Columbus Ice Hockey Club’s Akeem Adesiji, one of four 2016 NHL/Thurgood Marshall Fund scholarship recipients.
Hockey is For Everyone programs are nonprofit organizations across North America that provide youth of all backgrounds the chance to play hockey at little or no cost and serve as a means to encourage them to stay in school.
In addition, program participants learn essential life skills through the core values of hockey: commitment, perseverance, and teamwork.
Katherine Baker of Washington’s Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club wants to own her own ice arena someday.
Adesiji was a center for the Columbus Ice Hockey Club and has been playing the sport since he was eight years old. He intends to study environmental science. Founded in 1999, Columbus Ice serves more than 3,000 youth hockey players each year.
Aruchunan played right wing for the Hockey Education Reaching Out Society (HEROS) at Toronto’s Jane-Finch Chapter. The program focuses on high-risk communities in Toronto by making hockey accessible to youths in neighborhoods troubled by gangs or drugs.
Aruchunan wants to attend the University of Waterloo and major in mechanical engineering.
Prasanthan Aruchunan hopes the NHL/TMCF scholarship will help him launch a career in mechanical engineering.
“It’s a gift and I have to take advantage of it,” he told NHL.com of the scholarship. “I want to show other kids in my community you can be successful, and I want to be a role model for them. I come from a community where money is an issue for almost everyone. I want to inspire kids in the next generation.”
Baker was a defenseman for Washington D.C.’s Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club. Founded in 1976 by Neal Henderson. it’s the nation’s oldest minority youth hockey program. She started playing hockey at nine years old and aspires to own an arena someday so more kids to play hockey.
Snider Hockey’s Ava Olsen loves to play hockey and hopes to cover the game someday as a journalist.
Olsen was a center for Philadelphia’s Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation. She began playing hockey at 13 and she plans to major in business or marketing in hopes of working in the sports industry as a hockey journalist.
Snider Hockey, created in 2005 by Philadelphia Flyers founder Ed Snider, serves thousands of Philadelphia-area youth by providing full equipment, ice time, and coaching at no cost to their families. Snider has called the foundation his legacy.
It’s one thing to be a hockey coach and tell a young under-the-radar player on what he or she needs to do to grab the attention of NCAA and major junior hockey programs, it’s another thing bestowing that advice when the player in question is your kid.
Just ask Cyril Bollers.
Traverse City Hounds forward Kyle Bollers.
After his 16-year-old son,Kyle Bollers, was bypassed by Canadian major teams, the elder Bollers, who’s the director of player development for the Skillz Black Aces and has coached for Canadian hockey teams at the youth and junior levels, convened a family meeting to go over the options Kyle had to chase professional hockey-playing dream.
With skating for an Ontario Hockey League major junior team close to his suburban Toronto home out, Kyle’s family concluded the he’d have to leave home and play in a lower but nonetheless important league to catch the eyes of collegiate and major junior scouts.
So he packed his bags, grabbed his passport, and made the 436-mile, seven-hour trek from Toronto to Traverse City, Mich., to play for the Traverse City Hounds of the U.S. Premier Hockey League.
The youngest and only foreign-born player on the team, Kyle finished fourth on the Hounds in scoring with 29 goals and 27 assists in 46 regular season games.
He helped propel the Hounds to second place in the USPHL’s Eastern Conference Division with a 37-9 record with two overtime losses. The Hounds are currently battling the DetroitFighting Irish in the second round of the playoffs.
“Honestly, I never expected to do this well. This was a good step – a great decision that me and my family chose to send me down here,” Kyle told me recently. “Missing my mom, my dad, and my brothers and sisters, that’s been the hardest part. There are some days that I wish I could be home. But at the same time, I just think to myself ‘Why am I here, what’s, my goal, and what I do need to do to achieve that goal?’ And what I need to do is to be here.”
Kyle Bollers scored 29 goals in 46 regular season games for the USPHL Hounds (Photo/Jay Johnston/Game Day)
While Kyle may have been occasionally homesick, his parents confessed to being occasionally heart-sick about his absence. Still, father Cyril said move to Traverse City gives Kyle “an opportunity to be seen in the U.S., it gives him an opportunity to pursue his dream of playing college or major junior hockey, it gives him a brand new start, it gives him sense of independence being away from home as a 16-year-old.”
“It also gives him a sense of accomplishment of achieving and continuing to progress at a high level,” the elder Bollers said. “So for us, it’s a bitter sorrow because he is away from home. But he’s being productive in pursuing his hockey endeavors.”
The USPHL was founded in 2012 and it consists of 110 teams from 55 hockey organizations across 19 states. The teams skate in the Premier, Elite, Midwest, USP3, Under-18, Under-16 and Under-16 Futures divisions.
More than 350 USPHL players have gone on to play college or professional hockey. Center Jack Eichel went from the USPHL’s BostonJunior Bruins to a standout career at Boston University to being the Buffalo Sabres’ 2015 first-round draft pick and a top contender this season for the Calder Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s best rookie.
Center Charlie Coyleadvanced from Massachusetts’ South Shore Kings to BU to being the San Jose Sharks’ 2010 first-round draft pick. Coyle is the Minnesota Wild’s leading scorer so far this season.
Kyle Bollers, left, hopes that success in the USPHL leads to playing NCAA or major junior hockey in the near-future.
Kyle is hoping the USPHL will put him on the same glide path. Lester Griffin, the Hounds’majority owner and general manager, thinks it’s only a matter of time .
“He’s got great hands, sees the ice real well. We’re working with him to help improve his puck movement, passing,” Griffin told me recently. “He’s got a lot of potential and next year, he should be playing up somewhere.”
This summer, Kyle will likely spend some quality time on-ice with his dad, who’s a coach for the Jamaica Ice Hockey Federation, an organization that’s trying to develop a team that would eventually represent the Caribbean island nation in the Winter Olympics.
Kyle, whose family is of West Indian heritage, has practiced and played in an exhibition game for Team Jamaica. He said he’s looking forward to donning the team’s snazzy yellow, black, and green jersey and skate in more exhibition matches this summer.
Buffalo Sabres forward Evander Kane is the subject of an investigation into an alleged sex offense.
The allegation comes more than a month after an Erie County district attorney announced that Chicago Blackhawks star forward Patrick Kane, a Buffalo native, wouldn’t facecriminal charges following a three-month sexual assault investigation.
The Sabres, the National Hockey League, and law enforcement officials didn’t say much about the latest investigation Monday. Kane spoke about it briefly with reporters in Buffalo.
The Sabres issued a statement Sunday, saying “We take the allegation made today against Evander Kane very seriously.”
“We are gathering facts and have been in touch with the NHL and Evander’s representatives,” the organization said.
Even though little has been said officially, much has already been written about the investigation, including calls not to rush to judgment about those involved in the Evander Kane matter.
The Buffalo Sabres expect forwards Justin Bailey, Nick Baptiste and EvanRodrigues to be pillars in the team’s rebuilding process to respectability and StanleyCup contention.
But for now, they can be found behind pillars inside the Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial, home of the Rochester Americans of the AmericanHockey League.
After tearing up the OHL, Justin Bailey is learning the pro game at AHL Rochester.
“In the locker room, there’s a corner of the room where there’s a couple of pillars and it’s kind of tough to see in that corner,” Bailey told me recently. “That’s where they stuck me, Evan and Nick. I think it’s kind of a rookie thing.”
It’s about 75 miles from Blue Cross Arena to First Niagara Center, the Sabres home barn. Only a one-hour, 15-minute drive from Rochester to Buffalo via Interstate 90, Bailey, Baptiste and Rodrigues are so close to their National Hockey League dreams. Yet they’re so far.
As rookies, even highly-touted ones, they have dues to pay in the AHL: getting obstructed-view lockers, staying on the ice after practice to collect all the pucks, cleaning the inside of the team bus after road games.
And there are lessons to learn on the ice. The three are finding their way with the Amerks after posting gaudy numbers in the Ontario Hockey League and the NCAA.
“I think it’s just the size and speed and making quick decisions, making sure you’re in the right places defensively,” Baptiste, a Sabres 2013 third-round draft pick, said of the adjustment from Canadian major junior hockey to the pro ranks. “Obviously, goal-scoring and points are tougher in this league. I don’t think my numbers are exactly where I want them to be. But if I keep playing the right way, it will all fall into place.”
Rochester Americans forward Nick Baptiste is adjusting to bigger, stronger, faster AHL (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).
Baptiste is currently fifth on the Amerks in scoring with 3 goals and 6 assists in 19 games. Bailey is tied for sixth on the team with 2 goals and 6 assists in 20 games. Rodrigues has 2 goals and 4 assists in 19 games.
In the OHL, Baptiste had 32 goals and 32 assists in 53 games in 2014-15 with the Sudbury Wolves and Erie Otters. He scored 12 goals and 11 assists for the Otters in 19 playoff games last season.
Rochester’s Nick Baptiste is 5th on the team in scoring.
the first player chosen in the 2015 NHL Draft, in Erie last season and with Sabres forward Jack Eichel, the 2015 draft’s Number Two pick from Boston University, during Buffalo’s training camp.
“They’re similar in their speed and the way they see the game,” Baptiste said. “I think Eichel is a bit more of a power guy. He takes wide net a lot with a lot more power, drives hard to the net. I think McDavid is a little more finesse, makes more moves, has a little more stick skill with the puck going to the net. But they’re equally talented. They’re both very good.”
Bailey notched 34 goals and 35 assists in 57 games last season for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. He tallied 7 goals and 7 assists for the Greyhounds in 14 playoff games.
“The first couple of months, there’s been a lot of ups and downs, but I’m definitely starting to settle in now and getting more comfortable,” Bailey, Buffalo’s 2013 second-round draft pick, said of his time in Rochester thus far. “But it’s definitely a huge adjustment.”
Rodrigues and Eichel were teammates at Boston University. Rodrigues scored 21 goals and 40 assists in 41 games for the NCAA Division I Terriers. He keeps up with Eichel, who is seventh among NHL rookies in scoring with 8 goals and 4 assists in 24 games.
“We’ve been in touch a little bit here and there, kind of seeing how each other is doing,” said Rodrigues, who signed with the Sabres as a free agent in April.
Evan Rodrigues joined the Americans after a stellar career at Boston University (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).
And the three Rochester rookies keep close tabs on each other – at the rink and away from it. They commiserate and encourage each other in their obstructed-view portion of the Americans’ locker room.
Bailey and Baptiste are roomies in Rochester. “We kind of became close friends in training camp and playing against each other in the OHL, so it was a no-brainer,” Baptiste said.
Evan Rodrigues has a business degree from Boston University but says “right now I’m kind of focused on being a hockey player.”
Playing for the Americans is a bit of a homecoming for Bailey. He grew up in Williamsville, N.Y., about 65 miles from Rochester. Whenever he’s tired of doing his own cooking – or Baptiste’s – or needs help with laundry, he hits I-90 and heads to his mother’s home.
Karen Buscaglia says it’s a blessing, not a burden, when her son arrives hungry with a pile of dirty clothes. “Having him close means yay!!” she told me recently.
It also means less wear and tear on the family car. Bailey’s mother and his grandparents attend almost every Amerks home game, just as they attended nearly all of Bailey’s games in Kitchener, Ontario – about a two-hour drive from Williamsville. They even made it to some playoff games in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a 10-hour trek.
“I think it’s so important to support his journey and have his back,” Buscaglia said in a email. “There are many ups and downs on this hockey ride and knowing no matter what happens on the ice you still have a support system that loves you and believes in you makes the journey more fun for him and us. Watching the joy it brings to his grandparents has been worth every road trip.”
Justin Bailey can look into the crowd at Amerks home games and see his mother and grandparents (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu).
It seems almost pre-ordained that Bailey will someday wear Buffalo blue in the NHL. His mother has always been a big fan of the team. Bailey was raised in a condo community where Sabres legends like Michael Peca, Rob Ray and Matthew Barnaby lived.
He left Western New York at 15 to play for former Sabres great Pat LaFontaine and his Long Island Royals Tier 1 AAA Elite hockey team.
Bailey remembers going to a Sabres game when he was five or six years old and Barnaby flipping him a puck after the team’s pre-game warm up.
“Being a huge, huge Sabres fan, that was a huge thing getting a puck like that,” Bailey recalled. “I think that’s what started the dream.”
Now Bailey can almost see Buffalo from his view-challenged locker in Rochester.
“You never know who’s in the building,” he said of Blue Cross Arena. “The (Buffalo) GM could be here today or a scout could be here today watching you. It gives you that added incentive to play at the top of your game every night.”
When people ask Shandor Alphonso what number he wears on the back and sleeves of his black-and-white-striped National Hockey League linesman sweater, he smiles and assures them that “you won’t have any trouble finding me” on the ice.
Alphonso and Jay Sharrers are easily recognizable because they are the only black on-ice officials among the NHL’s small army of linesmen and referees.
Linesman Shandor Alphonso (Photo/Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
The 31-year-old Orangeville, Ontario, native is a relative newbie to the league. He’ll begin his second season as an NHL linesman when he takes to the ice in Buffalo Saturday in a game between the Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning.
Last season, Alphonso worked 50 NHL games along with 37 American Hockey League contests and that league’s Calder Cup Final.
“I’m a big hockey fan, so I love that I have the best seat in the house,” Alphonso told me recently. “I enjoy the fact that I’m there. As an on-ice official I feel like I’m part of the game, I’m in the game.”
Sharrers, 48, is the veteran, starting his 26th year as an NHL official. He became the league’s first black linesman when he worked a match between the Boston Bruins and Quebec Nordiques in October 1990.
A native of New Westminster, British Columbia, Sharrers made history again when he became the league’s first black referee, officiating a contest between the Philadelphia Flyers and Lightning in April 2001.
Since joining the NHL, Sharrers has officiated in more than 1,190 NHL regular season
Linesman Jay Sharrers (Photo/ Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
games and 163 playoff games. He’s worked seven Stanley Cup Finals, the 2010Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and the 2006 NHL All-Star Game in Dallas.
“Having done this job going on 26 years, I can say without a doubt that on a daily, game-in, game-out basis, you’re challenged every time you step on the ice,” Sharrers told me. “It’s very demanding. Physically, for one. And, of course, there’s the mental side of it because with the speed of the game now, and how it’s evolved into such a quick, fast-paced game, it’s a constant mental challenge game-in and game-out to be prepared, to be focused for 60 minutes of a game.”
Sharrers and Alphonso are co-workers but they haven’t worked an NHL game together yet. But that hasn’t stopped them from forming a mutual admiration society.
“He’s a tremendous young man, he’s got a great character, he’s got a good hockey IQ,” Sharrers said of Alphonso. “My goal when I got hired was to work the Stanley Cup, and I was fortunate enough to do that seven times. At this point in my career, it’s probably more of a responsibility to try to help the young people in the business, working with a guy like Shandor and give them the opportunity, the experience that was given to me when I first started by the veteran officials when I first started.”
“I looked up to him even before I started officiating,” Alphonso said of Sharrers. “Any time you see a player of color in the NHL, you notice him. And to see an on-ice official, it was pretty amazing to me. My very first training camp, he said ‘If you ever have any questions, no matter what it is, no matter what time, call.’ That was huge.”
So what possesses a person to put on minimal protective gear, carry a whistle, get on the ice and to try to police aggressive, well-armored players wielding sticks and possessing the power to launch pucks over 100 miles an hour in front of thousands of screaming, beer-fueled fans?
Sharrers and Alphonso both started out as hockey players. But Sharrers came to the realization at 15 that “my chances of making it as a player weren’t that good” so he sought a different path to the NHL.
“I turned my attention to officiating, thinking that could be a vehicle I could take to the NHL,” he told me. “I started working my way up through the junior hockey ranks in Canada, went to some officiating schools in the summer, got noticed, got scouted. I worked in the Western Hockey League, probably my first taste of elite hockey, in 1985. Then I got hired (by the NHL) in 1990. Officiating was a way of staying involved in a game I love.”
Alphonso played hockey through major juniors and college. He was a rugged left wing who played 183 games for the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves from 2001-02 to 2003-04, notching 25 goals, 48 assists and collecting 143 penalty minutes.
Before he became an NHL linesman, Shandor Alphonso was a rugged winger for Canada’s Lakehead University (Photo/Lakehead University)
He went on to skate for Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, from 2005-06 to 2009-10. He tallied 18 goals, 22 assists, and accumulated 121 penalty minutes in 111 games for the Thunderwolves.
“I was on the other end yelling at the referee,” he said.
During his fourth year at Lakehead, Alphonso received an invitation from the NHL to participate in the NHL Amateur Exposure Combine, an officiating camp designed to entice major junior, U.S., and Canadian college hockey players to consider becoming linesmen or referees.
After his final season at Lakehead, Alphonso was prepared to sign a professional contract to play in the Central Hockey League when he had a sudden change of heart.
“The NHL kind of told us, ‘If you’re good, you can get to the NHL in five years,'” He recalled. “I thought why not give it try, I never officiated before, and I really enjoyed it once I tried it out.”
Alphonso chose becoming an NHL linesman over chasing a pro hockey career (Photo/Courtesy Shandor Alphonso).
“Learned a lot from him and the instructors at that camp,” Alphonso said. “In three days, they showed me everything, the basics and the fundamentals for officiating.”
He then embarked on an experience-gathering, dues-paying journey through the alphabet soup of hockey leagues.
“I went from minor hockey to the OHL,” he said. “Second-year officiating in the OHL and in the OHA as well, doing major junior and Tier II junior – did both those leagues for three years. Also worked minor hockey at the same time. I felt I had a lot to learn so I wanted to be on the ice as much as I could.”
Alphonso, left, worked the AHL’s 2015 Calder Cup Final between the Utica Comets and Manchester Monarchs (Photo/Courtesy Lindsay A. Mogle/Utica Comets)
The NHL invited Alphonso back to its exposure combine in summer 2014 and hired him two weeks after the camp ended. Now he sometimes finds himself officiating games with former hockey teammates, opponents, or players he trained with before he donned the zebra stripes.
“I had a situation in the AHL, an individual I used to train with quite a bit. I had to kick him out of the face-off because of a violation he committed,” Alphonso recalled. “He comes over to me in a TV time-out, he’s like ‘Are you serious? You’re kicking me out of a face-off? We used to run hills and puke together after hot days working out so hard and you’re kicking me out?'”
Alphonso replied “Yeah, we used to spend a lot of time training and working hard and running hills together, but I have to do this job now.”
Hockey playoffs are in full swing and players of color are at the center of the action.
From the National Hockey League to Canada’s major junior leagues to the alphabet jumble of various minor leagues, players of color are providing heroics and highlights in the early rounds.
Washington Capitals’ Joel Ward getting it done in playoffs – again.
Washington Capitals right wing Joel Ward further enhanced his reputation as a clutch playoff performer with his game-winning goal against the New York Rangers with 1.3 seconds left in the third period in the first game of a second-round series opener at Madison Square Garden.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Ward’s buzzer-beater against Rangers all-world netminder Henrik Lundqvist marked only the third time that a winning goal had been scrored in an NHL playoff game with less than two seconds remaining.
Game-ending heroics are becoming old hat for Ward. He’s got three playoff walk-off (or skate-offs) goals, the most dramatic being a Game 7 overtime winner that vanquished the Boston Bruins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2012.
Anaheim Ducks left wing Emerson Etem is yet to score an NHL playoff game-ending goal. But he did recently notched a highlight reel goal in the Ducks’ opening round series against the Winnipeg Jets that melted the “White Out” of Jets fans inside the MTS Centre and drew oohs and aahs from amazed teammates.
Emerson Etem eats up Jets defenders on goal.
Born in Long Beach, California, Etem wasn’t much of a scorer during the 2014-15 regular season, tallying only 5 goals and 5 assists in 45 games for the Ducks. But he has 2 goals in five games in the still-young playoff season – and loads of confidence after undressing the Winnipeg Jets.
A few rungs below the NHL, forward Connor McDavid is getting his share of snazzy playoff goals for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The likely Number One pick in June’s 2015 NHL Draft is the Main Man in Erie, the straw that stirs the Pennsylvania-based franchise.
But folks lucky enough to catch the Otters’ playoff series against the Sault Ste.Marie Greyhounds on the NHL Network couldn’t help but notice Erie forward Nick Baptiste. He potted 4 goals in a crucial Game 4 against the Greyhounds, a team that featured defensemen Darnell Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers’ 2013 first-round draft pick, and Anthony DeAngelo, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2014 first-round draft selection.
“It was one of those nights where you just try to shoot as much as you can, and they go in,” Baptiste said after the game. “Fortunate enough to get the goals, but more importantly, the win.”
Erie won the game 7-5 and eliminated the Soo from the playoffs four games to two. The series was a high-scoring affair that offered a glimpse of the future for the downtrodden Buffalo Sabres.
Sure, a bad Ping-Pong ball bounce or two in the NHL Draft Lottery cost the Sabres – the league’s worst team in the 2014-15 season – the first-overall pick and a shot at McDavid in June’s draft.
But with the Number Two pick in the upcoming draft, Buffalo is poised to get a great player in Boston University forward Jack Eichel. And more help is on the way talent-wise to Buffalo in the near future in the form of players like Baptiste.
Nick Baptiste’s performance in the OHL playoffs brought Erie Otters fans to their feet (Matt Mead/Matt Mead Photography).
The Sabres chose him in the third round of the 2013 NHL Draft. In the 2014-15 regular season, Baptiste tallied 32 goals and 32 assists in 53 games with the Otters and the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves. He has 11 goals and 9 assists in 15 OHL playoff games thus far.
Baptiste was one of the last players cut in tryouts for the Canadian team that went on to win the Gold Medal in the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World JuniorChampionship.
The Greyhounds also featured a future Sabre in right wing Justin Bailey. A Buffalo second-round pick in 2013, Bailey scored 34 goals and 35 assists in 57 games with the Greyhounds and the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. The Western New York native tallied 7 goals and 7 assists in 14 playoff games for the Greyhounds.
The number of minority head coaches in the National Hockey League zeroed out Friday when the Philadelphia Flyers did the expected and fired Craig Berubeafter the team failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Ted Nolan, left, and Craig Berube, were the NHL’s only minority head coaches. Both have been fired.(Photo/Philadelphia Flyers).
Berube, who is part Cree, joins former Buffalo SabresHead Coach Ted Nolan, who’s Ojibwe, on the unemployment line. The two made history in November 2013 when they became the first two First Nations members to coach against each other in an NHL game.
“Do I think he did a good job last year? Yes,” Flyers General Manager Ron Hextall said of Berube. “And this year things didn’t go so well. So you take the whole piece of the pie. I don’t think you can evaluate a coach on 20 or 40 games; you have to evaluate him on the whole ball of wax. We felt over two seasons that a change was needed.”
The Flyers tapped Berube, 49, to replace Head Coach Peter Laviolette in October 2013. About a month later, Buffalo brought Nolan back for a second stint behind the Sabres bench.
Now the two have received their walking papers nearly a week apart. Neither firing was unexpected. Flyers management felt it had a playoff-caliber roster. But the team finished sixth in the NHL’s Metropolitan Division with a 33-31-18 record that wasn’t Stanley Cup Playoffs-worthy.
Philadelphia Flyers let Head Coach Craig Berube go after two season behind the bench.
The team was plagued by inconsistent play – world-beaters against top-tier NHL teams, doormats against lesser opponents – and some questionable coaching decisions. Berube mismanaged goaltender Steve Mason, arguably the Flyers’ best player in 2014-15. Berube appeared to rush Mason back between the pipes early after the goalie suffered injuries.
Nolan’s canning wasn’t a shocker but the rationale for it was. The Sabres, at 23-51-8, had the NHL’s worst record, a dubious distinction that now puts the team in the best position to land the first overall pick in June’s NHL Draft, which will likely be Erie Otters forward Connor McDavid.
After putting an underwhelming product on the ice, and after a season of fan and media talk about the Sabres tanking for the best shot at McDavid, Buffalo GeneralManager Tim Murray said he let Nolan go because he thought the team was better than its record indicated.
“I didn’t foresee us being a 30th-place team,” Murray said at a news conference. “Certainly after the trade deadline, trading out guys I had a big part in that, there’s no question and I own that. But up to the trade deadline I was open to keeping guys, I was open to maybe discussing with guys that were coming due, but the place we were in was the place we were in.”
Whatever the rationale, both Buffalo and Philadelphia are in the market for head coaches. Both teams may take runs at Detroit Red WingsHead Coach Mike Babcock, whose contract in the Motor City expires soon.
They like Mike. Several NHL teams are expected to bid for Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock’s services. (Photo Courtesy of The Detroit News/David Guralnick).
However, Babcock will be in high demand – Detroit, Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins will surely be interested – and he’ll demand to be paid, at least $5 million per season.
The Flyers may take a look at former Pittsburgh Penguins and U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team coach Dan Bylsma; St. Louis BluesHead Coach Ken Hitchcock; former Flyer player and Gold Medal-winning Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team coach Kevin Dineen; or even former Flyers Head Coach John Stevens, currently a Los Angeles Kings assistant coach.
Diversity within the National Hockey League’s head coaching ranks dwindled Sunday evening when the Buffalo Sabres fired bench boss Ted Nolan.
Nolan, who was in his second stint with the Sabres, piloted to team to a dismal 23-51-8 record, the worst record in the league. But many Sabres fans embraced the team’s race to the bottom for a chance at drafting Erie Otters forward Connor McDavid, who’s ranked as hockey’s top prospect by the NHL’s Central Scouting bureau.
Ted Nolan won’t be back behind the Sabres bench in 2015-16. The team fired him on Sunday. (Bill Wippert, Buffalo Sabres)
The league will hold a ping-pong ball lottery Saturday to determine which of the 14 NHL teams that failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs gets the first pick. The Sabres have a 20 percent of winning it.
Sabres General Manager Tim Murray told reporters Sunday that he felt the team had a better roster than its record indicated.
“I didn’t foresee us being a 30th-place team,” Murray said at a news conference. “Certainly after the trade deadline, trading out guys I had a big part in that, there’s no question and I own that. But up to the trade deadline I was open to keeping guys, I was open to maybe discussing with guys that were coming due, but the place we were in was the place we were in.”
Murray added: “I don’t know if I was disappointed (in Nolan). We decided to go with young guys in a rebuild and surround them with some high-character veterans and we’ve done that. We still finished in 30th-place. There’s been a lot of changes here and that’s on me. I’m not going to question his coaching decisions here in front of you guys. It’s a decision that was made and there’s a big picture to it.”
Nolan, who’s Ojibwe, had a 40-87-17 record with the Sabres since he took over Buffalo’s coaching duties in November 2013. The team’s poor showing over the last few seasons prompted it to trade stars like goaltender Ryan Miller, high-scoring forward Thomas Vanek, and unload bad free agent contracts like forward Ville Leino‘s.
Asked by the Associated Press about his dismissal, Nolan said “I’m just going to reflect on it and come out with a statement in the next couple of days.”
Evander Kane will have a new coach and new teammates next season in Buffalo.
Buffalo is looking to use the 2015 draft to reload – both on-ice and behind the bench. The drive for 2015-16 began in February when the Sabres acquired forward Evander Kane from the Winnipeg Jets in a seven-player trade.
Kane suffered a shoulder injury before the trade and didn’t play a single game for the Sabres. He knows he was brought in to add firepower to a team on the cusp of getting McDavid or Boston University forward Jack Eichel.
“There’s a lot of excitement for the future in Buffalo,” Kane told NHL.comin February. “Just looking at next year, they’re going to get a top pick and that’s exciting. Just to have one of those guys maybe to play with next year, plus the other young players on that team.”
There’s speculation that if the Sabres do land McDavid they’ll take a serious, and expensive, run at Detroit Red WingsHead Coach Mike Babcock, who’s in the final year of his contract in the Motor City.
Babcock, who guided Detroit to the Stanley Cup in 2008, could command several million dollars per season as teams like the deep-pocketed Toronto Maple Leafs, which fired Coach Peter Horachek and General Manager Dave Nonis Sunday, aggressively vie for his services.
Buffalo, Toronto, Philly…all believed to have interest in Babcock. He will get paid big $…that's a given. McDavid might tip the scale.
Nolan’s firing leaves only one minority head coach in the NHL – Philadelphia Flyers’Craig Berube, who’s part Cree. But Berube might also be on his way out the door soon because the team – 33-31-18 – failed to make the playoffs. The Flyers only have a 6.5 percent chance of winning the McDavid/Eichel lottery Saturday.
