CHICAGO – Parker and Spencer Foo share more than a brotherly bond.
Chicago Blackhawks draftee Parker Foo.
Parker is a scoring machine who tallied 34 goals and 32 assists in 60 games last season for the BrooksBandits of the Alberta Junior Hockey League.
Big brother Spencer is also a sniper – NCAA Division I hockey’s fourth-leading scorer in 2016-17 with 26 goals and 36 assists in 38 games as a junior for Union College.
Both are coveted by National Hockey League teams. The Chicago Blackhawks chose Parker Foo, an 18-year-old center, in the fifth round with the 144th pick in the 2017 NHL Draft at Chicago’s United Center.
Meanwhile, Spencer, a 23-year-old right wing, has committed to playing for the CalgaryFlames, ending a bidding war among NHL teams from his hometown Edmonton Oilers to the Philadelphia Flyers for his college free agent services. Spencer’s signing will be formally announced on Saturday.
"Calgary presented itself with a great opportunity & (it's) also a team that's right on the verge of winning." pic.twitter.com/9ZiiVDg1Rs
As for Parker, he was elated by being tapped by the Blackhawks. He didn’t attend the draft, not wanting to get his expectations too high. He did visit the Windy City a few weeks ago to attend a pre-draft combine.
“It’s incredible (to be selected by the Blackhawks),” he told The Calgary Herald. “I was there a couple of weeks ago. It’s a top-notch facility. Everything is incredible there — mind-boggling really. Obviously, the Blackhawks are an unreal team — all the superstars, and the coach is unbelievable.”
Parker is coming off an incredible 2016-17 season. He was the Bandits’ second-leading goal-scorer and fifth on the team in overall scoring – the combination of goals and assists. He was AJHL’s fourth-leading goal scorer during the regular season.
Foo was second on the Bandits and fourth in the AJHL in playoff scoring with 10 goals and 10 assists in 13 games. In addition, he tallied 4 goals and 5 assists in five games to help the Bandits win the Western Canada Cup.
Parker won’t be playing for Chicago any time soon. He’s committed to play NCAA Division I hockey next season. Where? Union College, just like his high-scoring brother did.
Parker was one of five players of Asian heritage picked by NHL teams in the weekend draft.
The others were:
Nick Suzuki, forward, Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario HockeyLeague, by the Vegas Golden Knights, first round, 13th overall pick; Kailer Yamamoto, forward, Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, by the Oilers, first round, 22nd overall pick; Jason Robertson, forward, KingstonFrontenacs of the OHL, by the Dallas Stars, second round, 43rd overall pick; Tyler Inamoto, defense, USA Hockey National Development Team, fifth round, 133rd pick overall.
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CHICAGO – Three players of color took center stage at the 2017 National Hockey LeagueDraft at Chicago’s United Center Friday night.
Two major junior hockey players of Asian heritage and a black French-Canadian player were chosen in the first round of the 31-team draft. And Ryan Reaves, a pugnacious veteran forward, was traded by the St. Louis Blues to the PittsburghPenguins, a move that capped the first day of the draft.
Thirteen proved to be a lucky number for Nick Suzuki, a forward for the OwenSound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League. He was taken with the 13th pick in the draft by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
Nick Suzuki of the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack hopes to be Vegas-bound after being drafted in the first round by the Golden Knights (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
“It’s not every day you get picked by an expansion team,” Suzukisaid after he had his named called and donned the fledgling Golden Knights’ jersey. “I’m really happy about being picked by Vegas and I want to get there pretty quick and see the new building.”
Suzuki was ranked as the 10th-best North American skater by NHL Central Scouting. The 5-foot-10 native of London, Ontario, was Owen Sound’s second-leading scorer last season with 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games.
His younger brother, forward Ryan Suzuki, was the first player chosen in the 2017 Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection Draft in April, plucked by the Barrie Colts.
Nick Suzuki said he has no worries about joining a new NHL team that’s bound to have more losses than wins in its first few seasons.
“I don’t think I’m nervous,” he said. “I’m more excited to see what Vegas is like. I don’t know if there’s pressure. I kind of just take it as a new team and you have to show them that you’re a good player.”
Kailer Yamamoto is looking forward to someday playing with Edmonton Oilers snipers Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl after Edmonton selected Yamamoto, a forward with the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs, with the 22nd pick of the draft.
“I’m really looking forward to going to that skill team,” Yamamoto said. “I think it’s going to definitely benefit my game.”
The 5-foot-7, 140-pound right wing was listed as the 17th-best North American skater by Central Scouting.
Spokane Chiefs’ Kailer Yamamoto hopes to prove that size doesn’t matter after the Edmonton Oilers chose the 5-foot-7 forward in the first round of the NHL Draft (Photo/Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs).
A Spokane native of Japanese and Hawaiian heritage, Yamamotoled the Chiefs in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 47 assists in 65 games. His older brother, Keanu, was Spokane’s fourth-leading scorer last season with 26 goals and 43 assists in 72 games.
“My dad’s dad, he’s from Japan actually, he was in the internment camps,” Kailer Yamamoto said. “My dad’s half Japanese so that makes me a quarter Japanese. It’s unbelievable to be Japanese, get the Japanese heritage, and hopefully be in the NHL someday.”
Right after Yamamoto had his name called, defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph was chosen with the 23nd pick of the draft by the Arizona Coyotes.
Joseph patrolled the blue line last season for the Charlottetown Islanders of the Quebec Major Junior HockeyLeague, where he had 6 goals and 33 assists in 62 games.
Joseph wasn’t a stranger to the spectacle and hype of draft day. He watched his older brother, forward Mathieu Joseph of the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs, get drafted by the TampaBay Lightning in the fourth round in 2015.
Still, the younger Joseph – who was ranked as the 27th-best North American skater eligible for the draft by Central Scouting – admitted to having a case of the jitters on Friday.
“Obviously, I didn’t want to think about the draft,” he said. “I played cards and watched movies as the day goes on, but as I sat in the stands and watched the names go by, I was thinking whether I’d get called or not.”
He credited his older brother and his parents for helping him achieve his draft day moment.
“I was a bit of an underdog,” Joseph said. “Obviously, I had my brother and my family to push me. Everyone has been there for me to push me and make me the player I am now.”
Thanks to Evan Moore for contributing to this report.
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Chicago Blackhawks star forward Artemi Panarin apologized Tuesday for a racially insensitive remark he made in a 2012 Russian television interview when he was playing in the Kontinental Hockey League.
Chicago Blackhawks Artemi Panarin
The Chicago Tribune, The Athletic, and other outlets reported that Panarin, the NationalHockey League’s rookie of the year last season, participated in an interview segment in 2012 with former KHL teammate Yaroslav Tulyakov, who asked him what he would never do, three sources who saw the video told The Tribune.
“Have sex with a black woman,” Panarin replied, the three Russian-speaking sources told the newspaper.
The existence of the video, which has been removed from YouTube, was first reported by a Chicago hockey blog called Faxes From Uncle Dale.
The Tribune reported that Panarin’s remark occurred during a segment in which he and Tulyakov appeared to trying to be humorous, making off-color remarks as they read questions.
Panarin issued a statement to the Tribune through the Blackhawks Tuesday, saying “In 2012, I was a guest on a Russian TV show and made insensitive comments that I deeply regret…I understand my comments are offensive and I apologize for my hurtful words.”
The team also issued its own statement: “On Sunday, we were made aware of the video of Artemi’s appearance on a Russian TV show in 2012…We immediately addressed the matter with him. His comments in the video in no way represent the values of our organization. He has apologized and understands the offensive nature of his words.”
Panarin, 25, has 20 goals and 38 asssts in 65 games for the Blackhawks this season.
For some, the glow of the 2016National Hockey LeagueDraft has long flickered out. Now is the time for sweat and hard work for the players who didn’t have their names called in Buffalo.
Several members of the Undrafted Class of 2016 have scored second chances of sorts with invites to the development camps of NHL teams interested in giving them a look and maybe a spot in their minor league systems.
Right wing Daniel Muzito-Bagendaof the Ontario Hockey League’sMississauga Steelheads didn’t get the call during the two-day draft in Buffalo. But he got a call from Buffalo a couple of days later.
Passed over by NHL teams at the 2016 draft, Mississauga’s Daniel Muzito-Bagenda signed a one-year deal with the Rochester Americans, the Buffalo Sabres AHL farm team (Photo by Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
The Rochester Americans, the Buffalo Sabres‘ American Hockey League farm team, signed him to a one-year contract. The Swedish Muzito-Bagenda, 20, was ranked the 205th-best draft-eligible North American skater.
He finished fifth on the Steelheads in scoring in 2015-16 with 20 goals and 17 assists in 63 regular season games. He notched 6 goals and 4 assists in seven playoff games.
Muzito-Bagenda attended the Sabres’ development camp last week and played alongside Steelheads teammates Alexander Nylander– the Sabres’ 2016 first-round pick, the eighth player chosen overall – and local boy Austin Omanski, Buffalo’s 2016 seventh-round pick, the 189th player selected.
The Sabres once featured the “French Connection,” the high-scoring line of Gilbert Perreault, Rene Robert and Rick Martin. Buffalo, at least for the development camp, could boast the “Mississauga Connection” with Muzito-Bagenda, Nylander and Omanski.
“We know each other from being teammates all last year, so it makes us feel more comfortable out there,” Muzito-Bagenda told the Americans’ website. “That has helped getting to know the other guys here, too.”
Mississauga Steelheads’ Josh Burnside attended the Washington Capitals rookie and development camp (Photo/ Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
Like Muzito-Bagenda, Steelheads team captain Josh Burnsidewent undrafted. Not ranked by NHL Central Scouting, the 5-foot-11, 186-pound left wing landed a development camp invite from the Washington Capitals.
Burnside, 21, was the Steelheads fourth-leading scorer last season with 13 goals and 32 assists in 55 regular season games. He had 2 goals and 2 assists in seven playoff games.
Youngstown Phantoms right wing Yushiro Hirano is becoming a development veteran. Hirano, the first player born in Japan to skate in the United States Hockey League, was invited to the San Jose Sharks camp.
The Hokkaido native attended the Chicago Blackhawks’prospects camp last year. Hirano, 20, was ranked the 184th-best North American player in 2016 by NHL Central Scouting prior to the June draft.
He finished third on the Phantoms in scoring in 2015-16 with 24 goals and 22 assists in 54 games.
High-scoring forward Yushiro Hirano found his way to the San Jose Sharks’ development camp after he wasn’t drafted by an NHL team (Photo/Bill Paterson).
Left wing Jermaine Loewen of the Western Hockey League’s Kamloops Blazers joined Hirano at the Sharks camp.
The 18-year-old is one of hockey’s remarkable stories. Born in Jamaica and adopted from an island orphanage by a white Manitoba family when he was five, Loewen didn’t lace on a pair of skates until he was six -late by Canadian standards.
But he’s making up for lost time. The 6-foot-3, 205 Loewen tallied 8 goals and 7 assists in 67 regular season games for the Blazers last season. He was held scoreless in 37 games in 2014-15.
It seems that no matter where defenseman Jalen Smereck goes, he always manages to surprise and impress. The Detroit area native worked his way from the USHL’s Bloomington Thunder to the Oshawa Generals who took him with the 299th overall pick of the 2013 OntarioHockey League draft.
He developed into a top defenseman for the Generals last season with 5 goals and 20 assists in 63 games.
Smereck didn’t crack Central Scouting’s rankings and NHL teams passed on him in Buffalo, but the 6-foot, 173-pound alum of the minority-oriented Detroit Hockey Association proved to be one of the highlights of the Arizona Coyotes’s development camp recently.
Former Oshawa Generals defenseman Jalen Smereck apparently impressed at Arizona Coyotes camp (Photo by Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
“Jalen Smereck may be undrafted, but his play Monday looked like he should have been,” the website FanSided reported on its Howlin’ Hockey Coyotes blog. “Smereck played hard on the puck, making it seem like he was bigger than he really was. His puck handling seemed reminiscent of P.K. Subban’sdefensive stylings.”
Smereck appears destined to return to the OHL next season. The Generals traded him in the off-season to home state Michigan’s Flint Firebirds.That is, unless he surprises and impresses some more.
Teams participating in the World Cup of Hockey finalized their rosters Friday, providing plenty of news about who’s in and who’s out of the eight-team tournament.
Three black players will represent their countries in the games to be played Sept. 17-Oct. 1 at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban wasn’t among the players picked for Canada’s World Cup of Hockey team.
Toronto is also the home town of Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban. But Subban, the 2013 Norris Trophy winner as the National Hockey League’s best defenseman, won’t be there because Team Canadadidn’t add him to its roster.
“The decisions weren’t easy, and with the depth of player talent we have in Canada, we knew it would be a difficult process to finalize our roster – but it’s what we signed up for, and we feel we’ve been able to put together the right balance to create a winning team,” Team Canada General Manager Doug Armstrong said.
Subban was 12th among NHL defensemen in scoring in the 2015-16 regular season with 6 goals and 45 assists in 68 games. Weber finished ninth among D-men with 20 goals and 31 assists and Doughty was tenth with 14 goals and 37 assists.
An article in Canada’s National PostSaturday had a lead that summed up the Subban skip best: “Call him P.K. Snubban.”
“OK, so the nickname needs a little work but that doesn’t excuse the fact the reimagined World Cup of Hockey will be devoid of one of its marquee talents: The marvelous P.K. Subban,” John Matisz wrote.
Subban represented Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics, but Team Canada Head CoachMike Babcock made it clear that he wasn’t a fan of Subban’s game. He played only 11 minutes – all in one game – during the entire Olympics.
Many Subban fans feel he’s disrespected by the Canadian hockey establishment – be it the Canadiens, Hockey Canada, or old-school hockey heads who think he’s too mouthy, too flashy, too…whatever.
After Montreal endured the hockey season from hell – a 38-38-6 record, no playoff berth – the Canadian rapper Wasiu had had enough with the Subban bashing.
Earlier this month, Wasiu picked up the mic and dropped “P.K. Subban,” a sometimes-explicit tribute to the player he says is “putting the city on his back.”
“The Canadiens had a bad season and the local media pointed the finger at P.K.,” Wasiu wrote in an essay for Fader. “It’s funny though, because he’s the best player and we all know he isn’t the problem. Same way when there’s violence that occurs at a club or in general, the thinking is to go check on the black people first because they look like they ‘fit the description’ – even if they weren’t the ones to start any problems.”
Wasiu’s is the second rap homage to Subban and his skills. Toronto-based rapper/producer Saukrates contributed “Say I” in 2011 as part of a Nike ad campaign that featured Subban.
If P.K. was P.O.’d about being excluded from the World Cup of Hockey, he didn’t show it over the weekend. Hanging out with the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre Saturday, Subban told Canada’s Sportsnet “I just want to see Canada win gold. So, I’ll be there cheering just like everybody else.”
“It’s a selection process,” he added. “So either you get selected, or you don’t . All I can do is be a model citizen. I’m Canadian so I support my country and I support my team just like everybody else.”
Another notable World Cup omission is Dallas Stars defenseman Johnny Oduya from Team Sweden’s roster.
Oduya, who won Stanley Cups with Chicago in 2013 and 2015, represented his country at the 2014 and 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2009 International Ice Hockey FederationWorld Championship.
Despite no Oduya and no Subban, there will still be players of color to watch at the World Cup tournament.
Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien will skate for Team USA. The Minneapolis-born big man – 6-foot-5, 260-pounds – with the booming slap shot finished third on the Jets in scoring in 2015-16 with 19 goals and 34 assists in 81 games.
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones made the World Cup’s TeamNorth America roster. The Texas-born Jones tallied 2 goals and 18 assists in 41 games for Columbus after being acquired from the Predators.
Team Europe added Philadelphia Flyers left wing Pierre-Edourard Bellemare to its roster Friday. Bellemare, who is from France, had 7 goals and 7 assists in 74 games for the Flyers.
This is President Barack Obama’s favorite time of year, sports-wise. The Leader of the Free World no doubt is keeping his eyes on important matters both foreign and domestic.
But he’s also keeping tabs on the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Pac 12and maybe even the Ivy League as those conferences wrap up their championships and winning teams await berths in the NCAA Division I men’s championship tournament, a.k.a. March Madness.
Obama is a stone-cold bracketologist basketball junkie who regularly puts his predictions to paper – he shares it with ESPN – on which team he thinks will successfully negotiate its way through the 68-team tourney and win the national title.
But a president who usually talks more hoops than hockey couldn’t resist going frozen pond on new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he visited the White House for an official visit last week.The president bragged about which team is the reigning National Hockey League champion.
Yes, the Chicago Blackhawks are Stanley Cup champs, but Trudeau reminded Obama that Canadian imports like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Sharp were key components to Chicago’s Cup runs.
And the prime minister and citizens of the Great White North weren’t shy about pointing out which country has more Olympic hockey gold medals.
It’s interesting that Obama engaged in hockey trash talk with Trudeau. The president hasn’t attended a Washington Capitals game since entering the White House, according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who maintains an authoritative record of presidential activities.
Will President Obama see Alex Ovechkin play live in D.C. before he leaves office?
“Well, the President is not a regular viewer of the sport,” White House Press SecretaryJosh Earnest told reporters last month. “I think even casual fans of hockey can appreciate, again, both the skill and athleticism that’s required to engage in that sport, but also appreciate how exciting playoff hockey is, and that brand of hockey is something that I think causes television ratings to spike in playoff time for hockey.”
Capitals and NHL officials had hoped that Obama would break his absence streak for the 2015Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic when his hometown Blackhawks faced the Capitals at Nationals Park, but no dice.
Frustrated by the no-show president, the Capitals fan site Russian Machine Never Breakswrote Obama a letter in 2013 imploring him to venture down to Washington’s Chinatown and attend a game.
The letter was part of a petition drive to get Obama to “Barack the Red,” a take on the Capitals’ “Rock the Red” motto.
“Right around the time President Clinton attended a Caps game, he had eliminated the budget deficit and projected a surplus for the first time in decades,” the Russian Machine Never Breaks editors wrote to Obama. “And watching the officials loosely interpret the NHL rulebook might be a great chance to refresh your Constitutional law background.”
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.
Yushiro Hirano has taken the term “road trip” to a new level.
The 20-year-old right wing left Hokkaido, Japan, last year to play hockey in Tingsryds, Sweden, some 4,683 miles away from his island home.
This year, Hirano’s pursuit of a National Hockey League career has taken him nearly 5,960 miles from home to Ohio, where he made history over the weekend as a member of the Youngstown Phantoms. Skating in the Phantoms’ season-opening 6-4 loss to Team USA Saturday, Hirano became the United States Hockey League’s first player born in Japan.
Ohio is Japan’s Yushiro Hirano’s new hockey home (Photo/Bill Paterson).
“I’m happy because I feel there is a responsibility for me to represent Japan well,” Hirano said when asked in an e-mail exchange about making the Phantoms roster. “I hope to grow the game in Japan and make everybody proud. I also want to play well enough to get to the professional ranks here in the United States.”
Joining the Phantoms capped an excellent hockey summer for Hirano. Before he tried out for the USHL team, he attended the Chicago Blackhawks development camp in July as a free agent invitee.
Hirano attended the Chicago Blackhawks development camp before joining the Phantoms (Photo/Bill Paterson).
The Hawks learned about Hirano through Andrew Allen, who was a developmental goaltending coach in the Chicago organization before becoming the Buffalo Sabres’ goalie coach this season. Allen knew of Hirano because he served as goaltending coach and developmental coach for Japan’s national team.
The son of a former Team Japan player, Hirano compiled an impressive numbers in Japan and Sweden. He tallied 12 goals and 14 assists in 26 games for Tingsryds’ junior team last season.
He collected 6 goals and 2 assists in 5 games as captain for Japan’s Under-20 team playing in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Junior Championship in the D1B Division in 2014-15. He also notched 3 goals in 5 games for Team Japan’s men’s squad in the IIHF world championship D1A Division last season.
But Hirano – whose first name is sometimes spelled Yushiroh – wasn’t widely known in North America because Japan isn’t a hockey power. Its men’s team is 21st in IIHF rankings. The women’s team is ranked eighth internationally and competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The squad played hard in Russia, but didn’t win a game.
With a baseball and soccer-obsessed population of 127,103,388, Japan has 19,260 hockey players – 9,641 men, 6,996 juniors, and 2,623 women – playing on 120 outdoor rinks and 110 indoor ice sheets.
“It is still a minor sport in Japan, but more people have been watching and following hockey in the United States, which will only help the game,” Hirano told me.
So how did Hirano wind up in Youngstown? Tingsryds team management emailed Phantoms CEO and Co-Owner Troy Loney that Hirano might be worth a look.
“He received an email this summer and passed it along to our general manager about a young Japanese player who was looking to pay his own way to come over and try out,” Phantoms Head Coach John Wroblewski told me recently. “I guess there was a little bit of intrigue because he attended Chicago Blackhawks rookie camp as well this summer, but we knew nothing about him when the emails started coming around.”
It didn’t take long for the 6-foot, 200-pound Hirano to impress Wroblewski.
“He’s a big kid, very strong and sturdy,” he said. “He looks a lot like some of the pro players I dealt with the last few years. This leads into him being able to shoot the puck extremely hard. Tremendous accurate shot, very, very heavy shot. Those are the things that stuck out right away.”
Hirano is one of the Phantoms’ top forwards and skates on the power play (Photo/Bill Paterson).
But Wroblewski saw something more in Hirano than a big body and a shot. “His work ethic was the next thing, and the ability to make plays,” he said. “He has quite a bit of vision and the ability to make deft, subtle plays. He works extremely hard away from the puck. If he’s the last guy on a back-check he’s working as hard as if he has it (the puck) going forward.”
Hirano says he’s adjusting to life in North America on and off the ice just fine, though he cites “the language barrier” as the biggest challenge. His coach isn’t so sure about that.
“He’s sneaky, I think he might know a little more than he’s letting on,” Wroblewski said with a laugh. “He understands it very well, he does have to concentrate a little more than the next guy on it, but he does understand it quite nicely. I say that because he picks up on subtlties within drills that really aren’t explained very well. Either he’s really smart, knows a little bit more English than we think, or a combination of both. I think it’s the third scenario.”
The United States Hockey League is the nation’s only Tier 1 junior league and prides itself on being a pathway to college hockey for its players. More than 95 percent of USHL players receive an opportunity to play NCAA Division I hockey.
Hirano, however, is viewing his USHL stint in Youngstown as a stepping stone to the NHL. He hopes to someday play alongside or against his favorite players – Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, Tampa Bay Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos, or WashingtonCapitals superstar Alex Ovechkin.
“I’m nowhere close to the (NHL) level yet,” he told The Chicago Tribune in July. “I’d like to keep improving, but if I do get there, it’d be a huge impact for kids in Japan. They’d have a legitimate dream they could look up to and strive for.”
Wroblewski believes that Hirano’s dream isn’t an impossible one.
“In this short time, if his learning curve continues on this pace, on the degree it has thus far, there’s no telling how much he can get done here,” he said. “His straight ahead speed has to improve, there’s definitely a skating factor that the NHL desires, but his ability to play with others and put the puck in the net is pretty special.”
It was a relatively low-key affair in 2013 with then-Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Johnny Oduya and a handful of buddies dressed to the nines for a formal sit-down gathering with the Stanley Cup in an ornate wood-paneled room in Stockholm.
Oduya, now a member of the Dallas Stars, and Blackhawks center Marcus Krugerbrought the Cup back to their native Sweden earlier this week, but this time Stanley was out and about for almost all to see.
Johnny Oduya, right, and former Chicago Blackhawks teammate Marcus Kruger with the Cup at Friends Arena (Photo/Phil Pritchard, Hockey Hall of Fame).
“I felt last time the privacy was more important,” Oduya told ESPN.com’s Scott Powers in an excellentpiece on the Cup’s day and night in Stockholm. “You want to do your things, kind of. Whereas this time, I think we both feel that we can combine some things and make it a bigger thing for friends and family.”
Phil Pritchard, the globe-trotting white-gloved keeper of the Stanley Cup, took some photos of the Stockholm visit. Oduya’s moments with the Cup close his Blackhawks career. In June, Oduya signed a two-year contract with the Stars that will reportedly pay him $3.75 million annually.
Oduya, left, and Marcus Kruger visit Stockholm’s Children’s Hospital with the Stanley Cup (Photo/Phil Pritchard, Hockey Hall of Fame).
“I see this as kind of an ending to what’s before,” Oduya told Powers. “From this day, I can kind of move forward. Of course, you get mixed emotions at some point. I could have had this day in June and it wouldn’t have been a problem. I see it as the final or whatever you say of what was, and this day forward you can move on.”
