Whether it happens in your 78th game or occurs in just your sixth, netting that first National Hockey League goal is a special moment.
Madison Bowey, defense, Washington Capitals.
Just ask Washington Capitals defenseman Madison Bowey and Edmonton Oilers blue-liner Caleb Jones.
Bowey, who appeared in 51 games for the Capitals last season, finally got his first NHL goal Saturday night – a rifle from the slot at 1:01 of the second period in a 3-2 Washington win over the OttawaSenators in Ottawa.
Washington rookie defenseman Tyler Lewington also scored his first goal in just his second NHL game. It was a first period tally that gave the Capitals a 2-0 lead in the opening frame.
“Obviously, it’s a long time, but it definitely felt great,” Bowey told The Washington Post of his of his goal. “It turned out to be a big goal for us…It was awesome, and I know the boys were happy for me, and to get that success, it’s sweet.”
Jones’ first goal, in his sixth NHL game since being called up from the AHL BakersfieldCondors, was one of the few bright spots for the Oilers in a 7-4 drubbing by the San Jose Sharks in Edmonton Saturday.
His score came at 10:40 of the third period in the the Oilers’ fifth straight loss.
“I’m sure in a couple of days when I look back on it, I will have a little smile,” Jones, the younger brother of Columbus Blue Jackets All-Star defenseman Seth Jones, told The Canadian Press. after the game. “But there was a lot of bad things tonight in our game. The moment I scored it, it just felt like a garbage-time goal.”
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Defenseman Caleb Jones, the younger brother of Columbus Blue Jackets All-
Star defenseman Seth Jones, made his National Hockey League regular season debut Friday night with the Edmonton Oilers against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Oilers called Jones up from the Bakersfield Condors, Edmonton’s American HockeyLeague affiliate. He logged 11:59 minutes of ice time in the Oilers’ 4-1 win.
“When I got the call, I was shocked. It’s an unbelievable feeling, it’s something you work for your whole life,” Jones told reporters before the game. “I thought I was playing well down there and they told me I deserved it. Maybe it was a little sooner than I expected, but you never really expect something like this. I feel ready to play at this level and I am ready to go.”
The Oilers selected Jones, 21, in the fourth round with the 117th overall pick of the 2015 NHL Draft. He’s played the last two season in Barkersfield, California. He’s tallied 2 goals and 10 assists in 21 games for the Condors.
Seth Jones, defense, Columbus Blue Jackets.
“I talked to people both at the American League level and the major junior level and I got a good feel,” Oilers Head Coach Ken Hitchcock said of Jones. “He’s a that’s going to be a player here for a little while and we might as well get his career started, so we want to start it tonight.”
Big Brother Seth, 24, wasn’t able to attend Caleb’s game in Edmonton. The Blue Jackets are in the throes of a home stand and play the Anaheim Ducks Saturday.
Dad Popeye Jones, a former NBA star, was busy, too. He’s an assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers who defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 113-101 in Philly Friday night.
The Edmonton Sun reported that Caleb’s mother and grandmother were in Edmonton to watch his debut.
“My mom was the first person I called,” Caleb told reporters. “She didn’t believe me at first and told me that I better not be lying to her. She was really happy for me and she kept calling me all night wanting to know what was going in and where I was in my travel.”
Friday’s match between the Oilers and Flyers featured four players of color: Jones, defenseman Darnell Nurse and left wing Juhjar Khaira for Edmonton and right wing Wayne Simmonds for the Flyers.
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That was the general response director Stephen Campanelli and the makers of “Indian Horse” initially received from the Canadian and Hollywood movie industry when they pitched the idea of bringing the fictional story of a First Nations boy – a survivor of Canada’s notorious Catholic residential schools – and his difficult path to adulthood and hockey fame to the big screen.
“‘Does the general public really want to see this?’ That was the attitude. ‘Why bring up the bad past,’ which really wasn’t that long ago.” Campanelli told me recently. “But it’s a great story that people connect with. And if you don’t connect with the part about the racism and horrible things that happened to the indigenous people, you connect with the hockey – you see the resilience and the power of a sport like hockey to change people’s lives.”
AJ Kapasheist is one of three actors who portrays Saul Indian Horse, a hockey-playing survivor of Canada’s residential schools, at various stages in his life (Photo/Elevation Pictures).
American audiences now have the chance to see “Indian Horse” as the Canadian-made film executive produced by Academy Award-winningactor/director ClintEastwood has finally crossed the border.
It took five years before the film was finally made and released in Canada in April. And it took months to get distribution interest in the United States. But for a product that folks allegedly wouldn’t see, “Indian Horse” has done alright, collecting 16 film awards.
“We work in an industry where indigenous stories and characters on the screen do not reach mainstream audiences,” said Christine Haebler, one of the film’s producers. “An all-Native or indigenous acted movie is not what distributors or theaters are used to seeing and selling on their screens even in 2018.”
But the timing seems right for “Indian Horse” – for positive and negative reasons.
The film comes at a time when a growing number Native American/First Nations players are achieving success at all levels of hockey – from Montreal Canadiens goaltender CareyPrice giving a nod to his heritage in accepting the Vezina Trophy in 2015 to the Ditidaht First Nation’s Maryna Macdonald playing defense for Harvard University this season.
It also comes at a time when indigenous hockey players are still experiencing a disturbing number of racist incidents and continue to endure hateful taunts about their heritage.
Last Friday, a pee wee hockey game near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, ended before the third period after players and parents allegedly hurledracially and culturallyinsensitive remarks toward the opposing team, the WaywayseecappoWolverines.
“We heard many parents saying ‘Those boys are just going to get drunk, maybe they’re drunk now. They’re probably hung over…,” Tanis Brandon, the mother of a Wolverines player and the team’s assistant manager, told CBC. “I felt like crying…As an adult, I didn’t even know how to handle it if someone called me a dirty Indian or a savage.”
In May, members of the First Nation Elite Bantam AAA team endured racist slurs and taunts at the Coupe Challenge Quebecin Quebec City, Canada.
“Indian Horse,” based on the late author Richard Wagamese’sbest-selling novel of the same name, will be screened in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday and will be shown in other theaters nationwide later this month.
Actor Forrest Goodluck plays a young Saul Indian Horse, who hones his hockey skill at a Canadian residential school (Photo/Elevation Pictures).
It was shown at the Yakama Nation Heritage Theater in Toppenish, Washington, and at the 23rd annual Red Nation International Film Festival in Los Angeles last month.
The movie doesn’t pull punches. Through the eyes of protagonist Saul Indian Horse, the film gives an unvarnished portrayal of life for Indigenous youth who were plucked from their families and shipped to residential schools, which were established under the premise of helping the children assimilate to white Canadian culture.
Between the 1880s and 1996, more than 150,000 indigenous children attended residential schools. Many of them reported being sexually, physically and psychologically abused by priests, nuns, and other teachers.
The Canadian government formally apologizedfor the schools in 2008 and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established out of a negotiated settlement that included monetary compensation for survivors.
Fred Sasakamoose, a residential school survivor, became the NHL’s first indigenous player with treaty status when he skated for the Chicago Black Hawks in 1953-54(Photo/Courtesy Hockey Hall of Fame) and Getty Embed.
Fred Sasakamoose cried as he watched “Indian Horse” at a screening in April. Sasakamoose, who is Ahtahkakoop Cree, became the first indigenous player with treaty status to play in the National Hockey League, accomplishing the feat when he skated for the Chicago Black Hawks against the TorontoMaple Leafs on February 27, 1954.
Like Saul Indian Horse, Sasakamoose found an escape from the horrors of the residential schools in hockey.
Harvard University defenseman Maryna Macdonald.
“It hit back the pain,” Sasakamoose said of the film. “The impact of that movie – it was my life. It is a good movie, but it is also painful.”
While there are some similarities between Sasakamoose and the movie’s lead character, Haebler notes that “Saul Indian Horse took a divergent path of Fred Sasakamoose’s life.”
“Without spoiling the movie, Saul Indian Horses experience differs greatly,” said said.
Harvard’s Macdonald, whose grandmother attended a residential school, said “Indian Horse” is “a great movie that, obviously touches on a heavy topic.”
“The depiction they have in the movie is pretty powerful,” she told me. “It kind of gives light for a lot of people who might not understand a lot about residential schools.”
And it gives light to how hard it was for players like Sasakamoose to make their way in a mostly-white hockey world. Sasakamoose’s NHL career spanned only 11 games in the 1953-54 season in which the talented center failed to score.
Harvard University defenseman Maryna Macdonald in action (Photo/Gil Talbot).
But his brief presence blazed the trail for other indigenous players like Reggie Leach, the high-scoring Philadelphia Flyers right wing who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the best Stanley Cup Playoffs performer in 1976, and center Bryan Trottier, a seven-time Stanley Cup champion on three different teams and the NHL’s Most Valuable Player in 1979.
Now, a new generation of Native American/First Nations players, like Macdonald, are at the dawn of their careers, helping to further break down barriers and debunk myths.
Brandon Montour, patrols the blue line for the Anaheim Ducks; Edmonton Oilers defensive prospect Ethan Bear skates for the Bakersfield Condors of the American Hockey League; and Devin Buffalo has gone from being a standout netminder at Ivy League Dartmouth College to a rookie for the Greenville Swamp Rabbits of the ECHL.
Greenville Swamp Rabbits goaltender Devin Buffalo hopes his play will help shatter stereotypes against Native American/First Nations hockey players (Photo/Greenville Swamp Rabbits).
Buffalo told CBC in October that his dream “to show people where a Native hockey player could go and overcome these obstacles and stereotypes.”
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Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Grant Fuhr is our guest. this episode. He discusses the new “Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story” documentary, what it was like winning five Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers from 1984 to 1990, and who he thinks are the best goalies ever.
Hall of Fame goalie Grant Fuhr (Photo/Derek Heisler)
“We had a lot of fun over the years, good, bad, and otherwise,” Fuhr said of his NHL career. “Most people don’t want their life up on the big movie screen, it took a little sell job on that. It’s fun to live your life, but it’s definitely different seeing up on the big screen.”
Hall of Fame center Wayne Gretzky, Fuhr’s teammate on those Edmonton powerhouse teams, calls Fuhr “the greatest goalie that ever lived.”
Fuhr compiled a 403-295-114 (ties) record and posted 25 shutouts in 868 regular season games with Edmonton, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, St. Louis Blues, Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames from 1981-82 to 1999-2000. He had a 92-50 record in 150 Stanley Cup playoff games, including six shutouts.
But his career wasn’t all amazing highlight reel saves and championships. The NHL suspendedhim for one year in 1990 after he admitted that he abused cocaine between 1983 and 1989. The league reinstated him after he served five months of the penalty. Still, it was a painful experience.
“The hardest part was living through it,” Fuhr says on the podcast. “The getting suspended, having what you love to do taken away from you, at that time, was hard.”
“Making Coco” will have its world premiere at the Calgary International Film Festivalon Saturday, September 29, as part of the festival’s closing gala. It will be televised on Canada’s Sportsnet in December. The film’s producer is still working on when and where it will be shown in the United States.
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Grant Fuhr was a man of few words during his National Hockey League career.
“Back then, five words was a long conversation for me,” Fuhr told me recently.
Grant Fuhr was Edmonton’s first-round draft pick in 1981.
Fuhr preferred to let his play in goal do the talking, winning five Stanley Cupchampionships with the Edmonton Oilers from 1984 to 1990, capturing the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goaltender in 1988, being named one of the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players, and becoming the first black player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2003.
“The Great One,” Hall of Fame center Wayne Gretzky, also vouched for his former Oilers teammate, calling him “the greatest goalie that ever lived.”
Fuhr tells his story with the help of Gretzkyand other NHL legends in Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story,” a Sportsnet documentary that goes behind the mask of one of the league’s most acrobatic, dominating, and enigmatic goaltenders.
“I think the biggest thing is it’s a chance for people to see what my life was actually like,” said Fuhr, who was nicknamed “Coco” during his playing days. “There has always been speculation, guessing and such, and everybody thinks that the world is glamorous all of the time.”
Audiences will get a first glimpse of the film at a private screening in Toronto during the TorontoFilm Festival on Tuesday, September 11. The documentary will have its world premiere at the Calgary International Film Festivalon Saturday, September 29, as part of the festival’s closing gala.
“Making Coco” will be televised in December on Sportsnet in Canada. The film’s producer says he’s still working on when and where it will be shown in the United States and elsewhere.
“Grant’s often forgotten on those great Oliers team because there were so many great players,” said Adam Scorgie, producer of the documentary directed by Don Metz. “You had arguably one of the greatest players to ever play (Gretzky), one of the greatest leaders in Mark Messier and you forget how good Grant Fuhr was backstopping that team and all the boundaries he broke within the NHL. He was the first black superstar, the first to win the Stanley Cup and the first black to be inducted in the Hall of Fame.”
The Oilers teams of Fuhr’s era were known for their offensive prowess, not their defensive skill. Yes, they had a Hall of Famer in smooth-skating offensive-minded defensman Paul Coffey, who states flatly in “Making Coco” that “I don’t block shots.”
The Oilers’ defense was its offense, which often left Fuhr to fend for himself at the other end of the rink.
“I licked my chops every time we were going to play them ’cause I knew I was going to get three or four two-on-ones guaranteed,” Tony McKegney, the NHL’s first black player to score 40 goals in a season, told me recently. “Well, we did and we would lose out there 7 to 4 or something like that. During those games, Grant would make five or seven spectacular saves. Obviously, Wayne and Messier and Glenn Anderson were the story, but if you asked them today they would admit they had four guys up the ice all the time to score knowing Grant was back there.”
Grant Fuhr won five Stanley Cups during 10 seasons with the offensively-gifted Edmonton Oilers. On many nights, the netminder nicknamed “Coco” had little help defensively.
Because of Edmonton’s go-go offense and gone-gone defense, Fuhr has a career goals-against average of 3.38 – the highest among all Hall of Fame goaltenders.
Other Hall inductees with regular season GAA’s over 3.00? Georges Vezina (3.28) – yeah, the trophy guy- and the New York Islanders’Billy Smith (3.17), who has four Stanley Cup rings to Fuhr’s five.
Fuhr compiled a 403-295-114 (ties) record and posted 25 shutouts in 868 regular season games with Edmonton, the Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, St. Louis Blues, Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames from 1981-82 to 1999-2000. He had a 92-50 record in 150 Stanley Cup playoff games, including six shutouts.
And Fuhr wouldn’t be a true Oiler if he didn’t provide some offense. His 46 points – all assists – that places him third among NHL goalies behind Tom Barrasso’s 48 points and soon-to-be Hall of Fame inductee Martin Brodeur’s 47 points. Three of Brodeur’s points are goals that he actually scored or was given credit for.
Fuhr’s accomplishments aren’t bad for a player who many hockey experts thought was overweight, broken-down, and washed up when the Blues signed him in 1995-96.
He revived his career in St. Louis, thanks in large part to training with Bob Kersee, a world-class African-American track coach and husband of U.S. Olympic track Gold Medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
After appearing in only 49 games for three different teams in 1993-94 and 1994-95, Fuhr played in a whopping 79 games in 1995-96 and 73 contests in 1996-97 for the Blues and posted a 63-55-27 record in those two seasons.
Grant Fuhr shows off the bling from five Stanley Cup championship rings won with the Edmonton Oilers (Photo/Derek Heisler/www.derekheisler.com).
“It saved my body, it got my body through a lot,” Fuhr said of the training. “The body was good, but it became so much better. And I got a better understanding of it, what I was capable of, and how I could play around certain injuries.”
Fuhr’s legacy and longevity captivated another goaltender of color, Fred Brathwaite, who became a teammate in Fuhr’s final NHL season in Calgary.
Growing up in Ottawa, Brathwaite so idolized Fuhr that he put up a poster of the veteran goaltender in his bedroom at his mother’s house, where it still hangs today.
“Just the way he could raise his game to the level it could be,” said Brathwaite, a HockeyCanada goalie coach who was the New York Islanders’ goalie coach last season. “He might let in a goal or two, but when it came down the final thing, he’d raise his game up to help his team win Stanley Cups, or Canada Cups, and all those other things. I was very fortunate, very lucky, to play with him in his last year of hockey.”
Former NHL goalie Fred Brathwaite is such a Grant Fuhr fan that he keeps a poster of the five-time Stanley Cup winner in the bedroom of his boyhood home in Ottawa. The two became teammates on the Calgary Flames in Fuhr’s final NHL season in 1999-2000 (Photo/Fred Brathwaite).
Fuhr considers considers himself lucky, despite the ups and downs he experienced in his life and career.
The child of black and white biological parents, he was adopted by a white family in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada, and was lured to the net by all the neat gear that goaltenders wear.
Small town Spruce Grove and Western Canada served as an incubator of sorts for Fuhr in the early stages of his career.
He said he never really experienced racial hostility on or off the ice the way players like forwards Devante Smith-Pelly of the WashingtonCapitals, Wayne Simmondsof the Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban have endured in recent seasons.
“The Great One,” former Edmonton Oilers center Wayne Gretzky, calls Grant Fuhr the greatest goalie ever in “Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story.”
“Some of the (minority) guys that played in the minors in the states, they did all the heavy lifting,” Fuhr said. “Guys like Val James, Bill Riley, Mike Marson, they did the heavy lifting, they went through all the abuse.”
He said he didn’t feel or sense racism’s sting until he was traded to the Sabres in 1992-93 and after a suburban country club where other Sabres players and team officials were members initially denied him membership.
Retired Calgary Flames captain Jarome Iginla being interviewed about what it was like being an opponent and later a teammate of Grant Fuhr in “Making Coco: The Grant Fuhr Story).
“The more you traveled in the states, the more you could see it (racism). You live in an element where race matters a little bit and people have some pointed views on it,” he said. “You would think that as time progresses and as history progresses that it would get better. And, if anything, in the last for or five years, it has taken steps backwards.”
Fuhr doesn’t shy away in the film from discussing perhaps the lowest point in his career – a one-year suspension by the NHL in 1990 after he admitted that he abused cocaine from 1983 to 1989. The league reinstated him after he served five months of the penalty.
“I went to the school of life and, unfortunately, not everything runs as smoothly as it’s supposed to. You make mistakes along the way, and there’s a great price to pay,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is that I lived life – good, bad and otherwise.
“I wasn’t sheltered from anything. I didn’t protect myself from anything. So, yeah, you can make mistakes and still have a positive life out of it,” he added. “There are things in school that they don’t teach you. The only way to learn ’em is by falling on your own. Yeah, I tripped and fell on my face a few times.”
But from the falls, Fuhr said he’s now able to teach others on how to avoid stumbling.
“Kids that I help out now, talk to and such, I get a little bit of credibility because of having been through it instead of someone telling them ‘Hey, this is how it has to be’ having never been through it. Having been though it, and been through it in a public way, I get a little more credibility from them.”
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The Calgary Flames‘ 3-2 win Saturday over the Edmonton Oilers had little impact on the standings – neither National Hockey League Western Conference team is within Stanley CupPlayoffs range.
However, the game at Calgary’s Saddledome was meaningful in terms of the diversity that was on display, further showing that the face of hockey is steadily changing.
The game featured the NHL debut of Flames forward Spencer Foo, a high-scoring former star at NCAA Division I Union College. An Edmonton native, Foo played 12:45 minutes, including 1:20 minutes on the power play, and registered a shot on goal.
Giving instructions to Foo and other Flames players was assistant coach Paul Jerrard, currently the only black NHL coach who stands the bench during games. He traded a stick for a clipboard after a minor league hockey career that spanned from 1987-88 to 1996-97. He did appear in five games for the Minnesota North Stars in 1988-89.
“There isn’t anybody of color I emulated in coaching, I just wanted to push hard and work and see where it would take me,” Jerrard told Canada’s Sportsnet in February. “It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was a black coach in the league. There might be one someday, I don’t know.”
Trying to keep Foo and the youthful Flames at bay on the Oilers back end Saturday night were defensemen Darnell Nurse and Ethan Bear and goaltender Al Montoya.
Nurse was the seventh overall pick in the 2014 NHL draft, one of two black blue-liners chosen in the first round. The other was Columbus Blue Jackets defender Seth Jones (chosen fourth overall by the Nashville Predators). Nurse has 6 goals and 19 assists in 79 games for the Oilers.
Bear, who is from the Ochapowace First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada, was an Edmonton 2015 fifth-round draft pick. The NHL rookie has a goal and 3 assists in 15 games with the Oilers.
Montoya, who was traded to the Oilers by the Montreal Canadiens, became the NHL’s first Cuban-American player when the New York Rangers chose him with the sixth overall pick in the 2004 NHL Draft.
Oilers left wing Jujhar Khaira, a Canadian of South Asian heritage, logged 11:02 minutes of ice time Saturday night, including 59 seconds on the power play and 1:15 minutes killing penalties.
Khaira, an Oilers 2013 third-round pick, has 11 goals and 10 assists in 66 games for Edmonton.
And, of course, David Amber manned the broadcast studio as host of Hockey Night in Canada’s late game.
Hockey Night in Canada hosts David Amber (L) and Ron MacLean (Photo/CNW Group/Sportsnet).
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What better way for right wing Spencer Foo to make his National Hockey League debut with the Calgary Flames than to play in the Battle of Alberta against the rival Edmonton Oilers Saturday night.
The Flames recalled Foo from the Stockton Heat, Calgary’s American Hockey League farm team, Wednesday in time for the Edmonton native to face the team he watched growing up.
Spencer Foo is excited about being recalled to the Calgary Flames from the AHL Stockton Heat where he was third on the team in scoring (Photo/Jack Lima).
“It’s going to be a cool night for me,” Foo told reporters. “Obviously, I have a lot of family and friends coming down from Edmonton, so it’s going to be a fun one.
“I grew up watching the Battle of Alberta all the time, so it’s just going to be special to finally be able to be part of it.”
Foo, 23, signed with Calgary after being one of the summer’s most sought-after free agents. He decided to go pro after his junior year at NCAA Division I Union College, where he tallied 26 goals and 36 assists in 38 games in 2016-17.
The Flames, Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers were among the teams that sought Foo’s services with Calgary winning out in the end.
“Calgary presented itself with a great opportunity & (it’s) also a team that’s right on the verge of winning,” Foo tweeted after he committed to the Flames in June.
Spencer Foo scored 20 goals for AHL Stockton after a slow start. He’ll make his NHL debut with the Calgary Flames Saturday night (Photo/Jack Lima).
Foo didn’t make the Flames roster out of training camp. Instead, he was sent to Stockton, California, where he was third on the team before his recall with 20 goals and 17 assists in 59 regular season games.
He scored goals in bunches in the AHL after netting only one goal in his first 19 minor league games.
“I think I was just giving other players a little too much respect out there and I wasn’t fully playing my game,” he told reporters. “But once I was able to get that out of my head and just started playing really hard and being hard to play against, I think that’s kind of when it all turned around for me.”
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GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREASarah Nurse went top shelf and her father went over the moon.
Forward Sarah Nurse scored her first Winter Olympics goal Thursday (Photo/Hockey Canada).
Nurse, a forward for the Canadian women’s hockey team, fired a wrist shot that bounced off United States goaltender Maddie Rooney’s right shoulder and found a small hole on the short side of the net. It proved to be the difference-maker in a 2-1 contest against the two best teams at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Nurse’s goal at 14:56 of the second period gave Canada a 2-0 lead. U.S. forward KendallCoyne scored early in the third period but Canadian goaltender Genevieve Lacasse withstood an onslaught of U.S. shots – stopping 44 – to preserve the win.
“We played a full 60 minutes and I think we have some things to improve on, but we’re definitely confident in where we’re at and where we’re going,” Nurse told reporters after the game.
Nurse’s tally was her first Olympic goal. She was named to the Canadian team after she completed a collegiate career at the NCAA Division I University of Wisconsin where she tallied 76 goals and 61 assists in 150 games.
She’s the Badgers’ eighth all-time leading scorer, keeping company with the likes of U.S. stars Brianna Decker and Hilary Knight, who are also playing in PyeongChang seeking Olympic gold.
Her father was feeling somewhat anxious before Canada’s match against its arch-rival for international women’s hockey supremacy. He felt exalted when his daughter’s shot went in the net.
“I’m still trying to come down,” he told me between periods following the goal.
Michelle and Roger Nurse cheered on their daughter, Canadian women’s Olympic hockey player Sarah Nurse, at the Canada-U.S. game Thursday. Sarah Nurse scored her first Olympic goal in that contest (Photo/William Douglas/Color of Hockey).
For Roger and his wife, Michelle Nurse, watching their daughter represent Canada in Pyeongchang triggered memories of how it all began.
“We did a lot of long car rides (to tournaments), me and Sarah. At one point, we’re driving all over North America,” Roger Nurse told me. “For me and Sarah in the car, we laugh, tell a lot of jokes, trying to make the ride shorter. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing since she was 7 years old.”
Sarah reflected on her hockey journey, too. She posted a tweet prior to the Olympic hockey tournament thanking her dad for doing the things that enabled her to play the game.
Thank you for giving me every opportunity to reach me dreams. For driving all over North America & for working nonstop to put every penny into my hockey career. To the one who put me on those double blades at 3 and never let me look back.. Dad, thank you ❤️#WeAllPlayForCanadapic.twitter.com/hVxWm1NaXx
But for all her success, Sarah and her parents never fully knew where she stood with Hockey Canada. Last year was Sarah’s first centralizaton – or tryout – camp with Canada’s national team from which the Olympic squad was picked.
“There are some kids who just smooth through – they’re the best player, they go to every camp, every event, every Four Nations (tournament), every worlds tournament,” Roger Nurse told me. “For Sarah, it was kind of a fight. No matter how good you thought she was, no matter how well you thought she was doing, it was a fight.”
“And, you, know, she’s still standing, and that’s a great testament to her ability to fight through it,” he added.
Part of that resilience comes from being part of a highly-competitivefamily. Sarah’s cousins are Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse and University of Connecticut women’s basketball point guard Kia Nurse, who played hoops for Canada at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Sarah’s younger brothers are hockey players: Issac Nurse plays right wing for the HamiltonBulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League.Elijah Nurse is a left wing for the Dundas Blues of Canada’s Provincial Junior Hockey League.
Sarah Nurse’s brother, Isaac Nurse, plays for the Hamilton Bulldogs of the OHL (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).
Her father was a renowned Canadian lacrosse player. Her uncle Richard Nurse – Darnell and Kia’s father – was a wide receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CanadianFootball League. Former National Football League quarterback Donovan McNabb is an uncle.
Sarah Nurse told CBC Sports that she’s proud of her family’s athletic roots stressed that “I’m here to create my own path.”
It’s something that Roger Nurse’s children occasionally have to remind him of when he’s dispensing hockey advice.
“I’d say something to her about a game she’d play at Wisconsin, she’d look at me and say ‘Dad, you never played a game of NCAA hockey,'” Roger Nurse said. “And Issac would say to me ‘Dad, you never played one game in the Ontario Hockey League.’ Point taken.”
These days, Roger Nurse keeps his advice simple.
“‘Go have fun, step up, and do what you have to do,'” he tells them.
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The former University of Wisconsin forward was named to the Canadian women’s hockey team that will compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea in February.
Forward Sarah Nurse is headed to the 2018 WinterOlympics (Photo/Hockey Canada).
Nurse, the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurseand University ofConnecticut basketball point guard Kia Nurseand niece of former National FootballLeague quarterback Donovan McNabb, tallied 76 goals and 61 assists in 150 games for the Badgers from 2013-14 to 2016-17.
She was the Badgers’ second-leading scorer in her senior year with 25 goals and 28 assists in 39 games.
Nurse led NCAA Division I women’s hockey players with three hat tricks last season, including the first three-goal game by a Badgers player against the University ofMinnesota last December. Nurse is the 22nd Wisconsin hockey player in program history to reach 100 career points.
The 5-foot-8 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, native brings a wealth of international experience to Team Canada. She was a member of the country’s gold medal-winning team at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s Under-18 Championship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2013.
She also helped Canada capture gold at the 2015 Nation’s Cup in Germany and silver at the 2017 Four Nations Cup in Tampa, Florida. She has 3 goals and 1 assists in 11 international games.
The Olympics are becoming a Nurse family tradition. Cousin Kia represented Canada on its women’s basketball team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
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Three players of Asian heritage are vying for spots on the U.S. and Canadian teams that will compete at the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation World JuniorChampionship.
Forwards Jonathan Ang and Nick Suzuki were among 32 players Hockey Canada selected last week to participate in the selection camp to determine Canada’s 22-player roster for the eight-team WJC tournament to be played Dec, 26-Jan.5 in Buffalo, New York.
Ang, a center for the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League, and Suzuki, a center for the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack, begin their quest for roster spots Monday at Hockey Canada’s four-day camp in St. Catharines, Ontario.
“It’s an honor to be given the opportunity to attend selection camp,” Ang said. “Growing up and watching the World Juniors every year, it’s an unbelievable feeling to be considered for this year’s National Junior Team and to be given a chance to represent our country.”
Peterborough Petes forward Jonathan Ang hopes he’ll don Team Canada’s jersey at the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Buffalo, New York Dec. 26-Jan. 5 (Photo/ Matthew Murnaghan/Hockey Canada Images).
Kailer Yamamoto, a right wing for the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, was chosen for the United States’ preliminary WJC roster. He’ll be among 23 U.S. players who’ll attend USA Hockey’s training camp Dec. 15-19 at Nationwide Arena and OhioHealth Ice Haus in Columbus, Ohio.
If Yamamoto, makes the cut, he’ll attend an additional camp in Jamestown, New York, Dec. 20-23.
Suzuki, whose great-great grandparents immigrated to Canada from Japan in the early 1900s, was the 13th overall pick in the 2017 National Hockey League Draft, chosen by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
He leads the Attack, a major junior team, in scoring with 17 goals and 27 assists in 26 games. He said he’s looking forward to Canada’s World Juniors camp.
“It’s been on my mind since the summer. I definitely want to make that team,” he told the Owen Sound Sun Times. “I think I can PK (penalty kill), or be on the power play, or maybe even be a lower-line guy and just build energy for the top line…I think I could do any role for the team.”
Ang, 19, became the first player of Malaysian heritage to be drafted by an NHL team when the Florida Panthers, chose him in the fourth round of the 2016 draft. He signed a three-year entry level contract with the NHL team in November.
Ang is the Petes’ top scorer this season with 15 goals and 20 assists in 31 games.
Yamamoto, 19, was taken by the Edmonton Oilers in the first round of the 2017 draft with the 22nd overall pick.
He appeared in nine games for the Oilers this season, collecting 3 assists before being reassigned to Spokane. He has 1 goal and 9 assists in 12 games since returning to Washington State.
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.
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