Jermaine Loewen became a first on Saturday. Now he’s looking for seconds.
Loewen, a towering left wing for the Kamloops Blazers, became the first Jamaican-born player chosen in a National Hockey League Draft when the Dallas Stars selected him in the seventh round with the 199th overall pick Saturday.
Jermaine Loewen, drafted by Dallas Stars (Photo/Kamloops Blazers).
“I cried when I got the call,” Loewen told Jon Keen, the play-by-play voice for the WesternHockey League Blazers.
If the 20-year-old from Mandeville, Jamaica, defies the odds and cracks the Stars’ roster, he’d become the NHL’s second Jamaican-born player. Graeme Townshend – a forward who played for the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, and Ottawa Senators – was the first.
“I think about that a lot , it’s like, ‘aw, man, I want to be the second guy,’” Loewen told Canada’s Sportsnet of joining Townshend in hockey history books “I just really want to make that happen.”
Loewen was ranked as the 160th-best North American skater by NHL Central Scouting. At 6-foot-4, 221-pounds, he was the Blazers’ leading scorerlast season with 36 goals and 28 assists in 66 regular season games.
He notched 50 goals and 46 assists in 236 regular season games over four seasons with Kamloops.
Loewen was one of the more remarkable stories of the two-day draft at Dallas’ American Airlines Center.
Adopted from an orphanage in Mandeville, Jamaica, by a white family and relocated to rural Arborg, Manitoba, when he was five, Loewen didn’t lace on a pair of skates until he was six – late by Canadian standards.
He didn’t play his first organized hockey game until he was 10. But that didn’t stop him from getting drafted by the Blazers, a Canadian major junior team, six years later.
“Obviously when you start playing organize hockey at 10 when other kids start at six or seven, you’re way behind,” Townshend told me in 2016. “He’s made up a lot of ground in a very short period of time. That says a lot about his character.”
ISS Hockey, in its 2018 NHL draft scouting report, called Loewen “a raw player” with pro potential.
“Plays a very impressive game with good on ice smarts, He can be heavy on his feet, but there is no denying his ability to get the job done,” ISS Hockey wrote. “Loewen could turn into a Wayne Simmonds-type player.”
Loewen should be among the players attending the Stars development camp June 25-29 at StarCenter Frisco, the team’s practice facility.
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Macon makes black hockey head coaches – and hockey history.
The Macon Mayhem introduced Leo Thomas as its new head coach Wednesday, scoring something of a hat trick in the Middle Georgia city that gave the world Otis Redding, Little Richard and the Allman Brothers Band.
Leo Thomas is new head coach of the Macon Mayhem of the SPHL.
With the appointment, Thomas becomes the only black head coach in North American professional hockey currently and the first in the 10-team Southern Professional Hockey League.
“I didn’t realize it until (Tuesday),” Thomas told reporters at a news conference Wednesday at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon. “Like, wow, this is a pretty big deal. When I started playing at a young age, I dealt with so much stuff being colored and stuff like that. I can’t even express the joy and happiness I have right now.”
Thomas also has the distinction of being the third black head coach in Macon’s storied hockey history. John Paris Jr.coached the defunct Macon Whoopee of the old Central Hockey League from 1996-97 to 1998-99.
Paris became the first black head coach to win a professional ice hockey championship when he led the Atlanta Knights to an International Hockey League title in 1994.
Graeme Townshend, the National Hockey League’s first Jamaican-born player, succeeded Paris as the Whoopee’s head coach in 1999-2000.Townshend now coaches Jamaica’s Winter Olympics hockey effort and operates a hockey camp in Maine.
Now it’s Thomas’ turn in Macon. He’ll helm a team that finished second in the SPHL last season with a 33-16-7 record. The team lost to the Huntsville Havoc in the second round of the playoffs after winning the league’s President’s Cup in 2016-17.
“I’m just going to bring my style of hockey which is hard-nosed, in-your-face and skill,” Thomas said. “I’m not going to go out there trying to goon it up or anything like that. Just bring all the stuff I’ve learned through the years and bring it to this team and make myself, and everybody that’s helped me, proud.”
Thomas had been a Mayhem assistant coach since the team’s championship season. Before that, the 36-year-old was a high-scoring forward for several minor league teams, including the Fort Wayne Comets of the ECHL the SPHL’s Mississippi RiverKings, and the IHL’s BloomingtonPrairieThunder.
New Macon Mayhem Head Coach Leo Thomas enjoyed a long and high-scoring minor league hockey career.
A Toronto native, Thomas comes from a hockey family. His nephew, Akil Thomas, a center for the Ontario Hockey League’sNiagara IceDogs, is a potential first-round pick in the 2018 National Hockey League Draft June 22-23 in Dallas, Texas.
Leo Thomas’ older brother, Khalil Thomas, was a career minor-leagurer who played center for the CHL’s Memphis RiverKings and Oklahoma City Blazers, the United Hockey League’s Flint Generals, and the SPHL’s Jacksonville Barracudas.
Hockey runs in new Macon Mayhem Head Coach Leo Thomas’ family. His nephew, Niagara IceDogs forward Akil Thomas, is rated the 15th-best North American skater eligible for the 2018 NHL Draft by NHL Central Scouting. Leo’s brother, Khalil Thomas, enjoyed a lengthy minor league hockey career (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).
Khalil Thomas and his wife, Akilah, are now part owners of the Oshawa RiverKings of the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League.
Leo Thomas is part of a small but growing fraternity of minority hockey coaches who are working their way through the professional, amateur and youth ranks.
Calgary FlamesAssistant Coach Paul Jerrard was the only minority NHL coach who worked games from the bench last season. The others were specialty coaches who were in the press box or video room on game days.
Fred Brathwaite coached the New York Islanders’ goaltenders while Scott Gomez ran the Isles’ power play strategy. Sudarshan Maharajtutored the Anaheim Ducks’ netminders. Frantz Jean handled the Tampa BayLightning’s goaltenders. Nigel Kirwan served as the ‘Bolts video coach.
On the amateur level, Jason McCrimmon is head coach and part owner of Detroit’s Motor City Hawks of the U.S. Premier Hockey League, a Tier III junior league where players showcase their talents for college or major junior hockey programs.
In April, Duante Abercrombie, an alum of the NHL’s “Hockey is for Everyone” program, was named head coach of the Washington Little Capitals 16U National Team. That squad has a track record of developing players for junior, college, and professional hockey teams.
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As a kid, Duante’ Abercrombie dreamed of playing for the Washington Little Capitals, a youth hockey program with a track record of developing players for junior, college and professional hockey teams.
Duante’ Abercrombie becomes head coach in a hockey program that helps develop players for collegiate, junior and pro hockey.
Almost after each practice with the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club – North America’s oldest minority-oriented youth hockey program – Abercrombie would ask his mother if he could join the Little Caps, too.
“We just didn’t have the money,” he recalled. “Coming from a family that knew absolutely nothing about hockey, it was hard to justify paying as much as it cost to play hockey when I was already doing the same thing with Fort Dupont.”
Abercrombie, 31, finally joined the Little Caps last week as the new head coach of the Washington Little Capitals 16U National Team. The appointment fulfills the Washington, D.C., native’s dreams of being affiliated with the program and pursuing a career in coaching that he hopes will lead a National Hockey League job someday.
“It’s just amazing how I’ve come from a time and place when I couldn’t even afford to try out for the team to now being the head coach of arguably the most critical age group they have in the U16’s,” he said. “It’s an opportunity that I don’t take lightly.”
Neal Henderson, founder and head coach of the 41-year-old Fort Dupont hockey program, was all smiles about Abrercrombie joining him in the head coaching fraternity.
Fort Dupont is part of the NHL’s “Hockey is For Everyone” initiative that provides support and unique programming to some 30 nonprofit profit youth hockey organizations across North America, offering kids of all backgrounds the opportunity to play the game.
Duante’ Abercrombie, right, with Neal Henderson, founder and head coach of the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, the nation’s oldest minority-oriented youth hockey program (Photo/Courtesy Duante’ Abercrombie).
“It’s an honor to have had the opportunity to work with Duante’, and teach him, and put him on his first pair of skates,” Henderson said. “It’s an honor to see him progress the way he has, play hockey the way he has, and climb the ladder the way he has, and to stick with a trade that’s very difficult to maneuver through.
Its most notable alum is Jeff Halpern, who had a lengthy NHL career with the Washington Capitals, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Tampa BayLightning and Los Angeles Kings.
“It was a no brainer deciding that this was something that I had to be a part of,” Abercrombie said. “My plan is to teach my players how to use their individual skills within a team structure that not only leads to eventual team success on the score sheet, but also prepares them individually for what’s expected at the next levels.”
Hockey took Duante’ Abercrombie from Washington, D.C., to New Zealand and the U.S. minor league hockey towns. Here he’s facing off as a member of the Brewster Bulldogs of the Federal Hockey League (Photo/Courtesy Duante’ Abercrombie).
With his appointment, Abercrombie begins a journey to one of the final frontiers for people of color in hockey – the head coaching ranks.
There were no minority head coaches in the NHL in the 2017-18 season. Calgary FlamesAssistant Coach Paul Jerrard was the only black NHL coach working the bench during games.
The NHL’s other minority coaches can be found on the practice ice or in the video room. Fred Brathwaite is the New York Islanders‘ goaltending coach and Sudarshan Maharajtutors netminders for the Anaheim Ducks. Frantz Jean is the Tampa BayLightning’s goalie coach and Nigel Kirwan is a video coach for the ‘Bolts.
Little Capitals management considers Abercrombie “a rising star in the hockey development scene.”
“Talk to him for five minutes and you can feel his excitement and energy for this job,” said Little Capitals Hockey Director Matt Thomas. “His ability to develop players is a great asset to our organization, and particularly for our 16U team during this critical stage. I look forward to working with Duante’ to help our talented group of 16U players advance in their careers.”
He developed an appreciation for hockey training and coaching through participation in rigorous conditioning programs like BTNLand Twist in Ontario and serving as an instructor for three years in a hockey school in Maine run by Townshend.
For the last two seasons, Abercrombie served as a hockey coach for Georgetown Preparatory School.
“Having scouted and been a skills consultant at the ACHA and NCAA levels, I will spend time developing the skills and habits that junior programs and colleges look for, and my ultimate goal is to teach (players) how to play the game with a ‘Winning Attitude’ all the time,” he said.
Abercrombie said he stands on the shoulders of other black coaches who’ve mentored him – Townshendand Henderson – and credit them for his progress.
“Duante’ is one of the best instructors I had,” Townshend said. “He comes from a background where there wasn’t a lot of hockey. He’s come a long way just because of that (Fort Dupont) program there. He’s always studying the game, he’s always learning and improving his craft. All those reasons make him a good coach.”
Thompson believes that the sky’s the limit for Abercrombie now that he has his foot in the coaching door.
“He’s now definitely in that realm where he’s going to start meeting people and start working his way up the ladder,” he said.
Henderson predicts that other Fort Dupont pupils will follow in Abercrombie’s path and become bench bosses for teams.
“Coming out of our group, for as old as it is, you’re going to find more doing it, such as Ralph Featherstone, and other men who have gone on in hockey to reach certain pinnacles in it,” Henderson said.
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The left wing for the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League dreams of becoming the second Jamaican-born player to skate in the National Hockey League, standing on the broad shoulders of Graeme Townshend.
Jermaine Loewen moved from Jamaica to Manitoba, Canada, when he was five (Photo/Kamloops Blazers).
Townshend was a rugged right wing who played 67 NHL games for the Boston Bruins, New YorkIslanders and Ottawa Senators. Loewen, who was born in Jamaica and raised in Manitoba, inched closer to his dream Monday when he turned 18 – the minimum age to be eligible for the 2016 NHL Draft.
“I think about that a lot , it’s like, ‘aw, man, I want to be the second guy,'” Loewen told Canada’s Sportsnet of joining Townshend in hockey history books “I just really want to make that happen.”
Loewen is also excited about the possibility of someday seeing Jamaica compete in the Winter Olympics in hockey. The Caribbean island nation, known for its Olympic track and field prowess and for having the world’s funkiest bobsled team, is an associate member of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
The Jamaica Ice Hockey Federation has been scouring Canada and the United States for Caribbean expatriate hockey talent in hopes of forming a touring team this summer to boost interest in the program and to attract sponsors for its Winter Olympics endeavor.
The national team effort will need deep pockets to field a team and to help build an ice skating rink in Jamaica, a requirement for full IIHF membership. In hockey’s six degrees of separation, Jamaica’s coaching staff is headed by none other than Graeme Townshend.
After being held scoreless in his rookie season, Jermaine Loewen has 5 goals so far in 2015-16 (Photo/Kamloops Blazers).
“To have an Olympic team is huge, especially the fact that we’re so small. I’m really happy that they’re making progress,” Loewen told NewsKamloops earlier this month. “Oh yeah…I definitely dream about it…maybe someday going and playing for that. There still is a lot of stuff to work out to get to that level. It’s a pretty big deal. I find it really cool.”
Townshend says he would love to see Loewen – all 6-foot-3, 205 pounds of him – don Jamaica’s flashy green, yellow, and black jersey. In time.
“You know what? I’m hoping that he’s Canadian hockey material first, to be honest,” Townshend told me recently. “Selfishly, of course, I’d love to have him on our team. But I’d like to see him be considered for Team Canada at some point. I know he’s Jamaican, but he grew up in Canada, I’m sure he has a soft spot in his heart for Canada. Like every Canadian kid, he’d want to represent his country. At some point, I’m sure our paths will cross, but I’d like to see how far he can take this. If he could play for Canada in the World Juniors, that would be amazing.”
Everything about Loewen’s hockey journey has been amazing thus far. Adopted from an orphanage in Mandeville, Jamaica, and relocated to rural Arborg, Manitoba, when he was five, Loewen didn’t lace on a pair of skates until he was six – late by Canadian standards.
He didn’t play his first organized hockey game until he was 10. But that didn’t stop him from getting drafted by the Blazers, a Canadian major junior team, six years later.
Year One with the Blazers was a learning curve for Loewen. He was scoreless in 37 games and amassed 24 penalty minutes. In 39 games this season, he has 5 goals, 3 assists, and a robust 39 penalty minutes.
Loewen wasn’t among the players listed Tuesday in NHL Central Scouting’s mid-term rankings of players eligible for the June draft in Buffalo. Still, Townshend is impressed with what Loewen has accomplished so far and believes that he has the raw talent and determination to eventually be chosen by an NHL team.
“His is one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever heard,” Townshend said. “Obviously when you start playing organize hockey at 10 when other kids start at six or seven, you’re way behind. He’s made up a lot of ground in a very short period of time. That says a lot about his character.”
When it comes to ice hockey, Jamaica is Hotter Than July– at least interest in the effort to build a Jamaican Olympic hockey team is.
Years after hiring coaches and management and months after holding player tryouts, Jamaica debuted an exhibition team of mostly Canadian-Caribbean players that almost won a tournament in Ontario earlier this month.
Jamaica was jammin’ at a tournament in Nottawasaga, Ont., earlier this month but lost by a goal in championship game (Photo/@GameDayPhoto).
The team played well and looked gaudy good in Jamaican green, yellow, and black jerseys (I want one!). Rogers Sportsnet Producer Jason Thom and his crew recently did an excellent piece on the Jamaican drive and the team’s head coach, retired National HockeyLeague forward Graeme Townshend, who was the league’s first Jamaican-born player.Below is the segment, courtesy of the good folks at Sportsnet.
At the end of the two days, the head coach who had no idea about exactly what he’d gotten himself into sounded pumped.
“The talent level is off the charts,” Graeme Townshend, head coach of the under-construction Jamaican national ice hockey program proclaimed Sunday. “We have a lot of talented kids at our disposal. There are some good players up here, obviously, but I didn’t expect them to be as good as they are.”
The Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation took its first on-ice strides toward building an Olympics-worthy national team with a two-day tryout at a suburban Toronto rink over the weekend under the watchful eyes of Townshend, a former Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators forward who was the National Hockey League’s first Jamaican-born player, and Cyril Bollers, president and coach of SkillzHockey.
And so it begins. Participants in Jamaica’s first-ever ice hockey effort pose for history.
About 18 skaters – from as far away as Sweden and Washington, D.C., and as nearby as Scarborough, Ont., and Quebec – ventured to the Westwood Arena in Etobicoke, donned practice jerseys with Jamaica’s yellow, black, and green flag on the front, and showed Townshend, Bollers, and the rest of the JOIHF brain trust what they could do. Twenty-five players showed up for Sunday’s sessions. The tryout participants ranged in age from 15 to 28, Townshend told me.
“As the word got around, more and more kids started to find us, I guess,” he added.
The prospect of representing his mother’s homeland is what prompted 17-year-old forward David Southwells to travel to North America for the first time from his family’s current home in Tingsryd, Sweden, birthplace of former Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Kjell Samuelsson.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Southwells told me. “It would mean a huge amount, especially to my family because of our heritage.”
Hockey Coach Graeme Townshend (center) liked what he saw during Jamaica’s first-ever ice hockey tryout.
Washington’s Duante Abercrombie learned about the Jamaica tryout via Instagram about a week ago. An alum of the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, the oldest minority youth hockey program in the United States, Abercrombie happened to be in Whitby, Ont., training for a potential tryout with the Dayton Demonz of the Federal Hockey League when he got the message.
The trip from Whitby to Toronto was a short train ride for Abercrombie, one that also spurred a family reunion in search of his Jamaican roots.
“I didn’t speak to my dad when I was a child, and my mom (Devara Abercrombie) always said my dad had Jamaican (in him) but she didn’t know where it went because they didn’t speak. I was three months old when they separated,” Abercrombie told me. “I didn’t speak to him until I was 18 years old, and maybe just three times. The only other time I spoke to him was this past week when I let him know that he officially needs to find (his Jamaican) descendants and other stuff.”
That conversation led to more talk and a warm catching up between Abercrombie and his father, Michael Armstead.
“He was so excited. He’s kept up with everything that I’ve done,” Duante Abercrombie told me. “This weekend wasn’t just a great weekend for hockey, it also gave me an opportunity to connect with my dad. It was really a powerful, powerful weekend. I just didn’t get a hockey blessing, I got a family blessing out of it, too.”
Abercrombie is only 28 but consider him a hockey lifer. After playing for Fort Dupont Head Coach Neal Henderson and winning a Washington, D.C., hockey championship with Gonzaga High School, Abercrombie set his sights on reaching the pro ranks.
His quest took him to New Zealand in 2011-12 to play for the West Auckland Admirals of the New Zealand Ice Hockey League. Since then, he’s been preparing for his chance, perpetually training on and off the ice should a team come calling.
The closest he’s gotten to the NHL was practicing with Washington Capitals players Mike Green, John Carlson, and Nicklas Backstrom at the team’s KettlerCapitalsIceplex facility in Arlington, Va., during the weeks of the 2012 NHL players lockout.
If Townshend and the JOIHF officials can find more players with Abercrombie’s desire and hockey pedigree, the fledgling program will be off to a good start.
The weekend’s tryout was the first of several to be held in Canada and the U.S. When Jamaica gained associate membership in the International Ice Hockey Federation in 2012, JOIHF officials boldly stated that their goal was to have a team on the ice at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Skillz Hockey’s Cyril Bollers (left) provided his coaching expertise to the Jamaican hockey effort.
But JOIHF officials have since slowed their roll on 2018, acknowledging that they have a lot of work to do on and off the ice before even thinking about the next two or three Winter Games.
“It’s premature to shoot for 2018,” Townshend told me. “Logistically, it would be monumental. We’d have to work our way through the different divisions of the IIHF. We don’t have a rink in Jamaica yet, we have to wait until that’s done. There’s a first step in that process, getting funding for that rink.”
“We have to do it right, cross the T’s and dot the I’s. We have to satisfy the International Ice Hockey Federation’s guidelines.” he continued. “My job is to just keep plugging away and try to get us into competition outside of the International Ice Hockey Federation jurisdiction and just get the word out there, start getting more attention to the program, and once we do that I think the funding will come.”
The country that gave us Bob Marley, Usain Bolt, Red Stripe beer, and the world’s funkiest bobsled team wants to add one more thing to its “famous-for” list: ice hockey.
The Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation is ramping up its efforts to build a national team that it hopes will follow in the legendary footsteps of the Jamaican Bobsled Team and compete in the Winter Olympics, as early as the 2018 games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Jamaica took the first step in its seemingly improbable quest in May 2012 when it joined the International Ice
Former Bruins forward Graeme Townshend hopes to coach Jamaica in the Winter Olympics.
Hockey Federation as an associate member. Step Two occurred last May when JOIHF announced the program’s management and coaching staff. The staff includes Head Coach GraemeTownshend, who was the NHL’s first Jamaican-born player when he debuted with the Boston Bruins in 1989-90; Paul Jerrard, who briefly played for the Minnesota North Stars, served as an assistant coach for the Dallas Stars, and is currently an assistant coach for the Utica Comets, the Vancouver Canucks’ American Hockey League farm team; and Cosmo Clarke, a former college player and minor leaguer who now specializes in strength training.
“There are quite a few players of Jamaican descent,” Lester Griffin, the Jamaica program’s assistant general manager, told me. “You have them playing in the NHL, you have them playing in the ECHL, college and juniors. It’s just a matter of letting them know about this and getting the message out there.”
Which brings us to Step Three. JOIHF is scheduled to hold its first-ever player tryout for Jamaican expatriates and other players of Caribbean heritage on August 23 at the Westwood Arena in Etobicoke, Ontario. Players from this and later tryouts will be considered for a 2015 exhibition touring team. That team will serve as an audition, of sorts, for a Jamaican squad that would play in IIHF tournaments and eventually attempt to qualify for the Winter Olympics.
“When the word first got out about this a couple of years ago I got a lot of calls from all over Canada, the United States, and parts of Europe from kids that want to be involved,” Townshend told me. “Now that the word is out officially that we’re having a tryout, I can just imagine there should be quite a turnout.”
With the clock rapidly ticking towards 2018, Townshend, 48, already envisions the type of team that he’d command in Pyeongchang. When he thinks Jamaica, he sees Slovenia. That country’s plucky seventh-place Olympic team had only one NHL star on its roster, Los Angeles Kings forward AnzeKopitar. The rest of the squad was a mix of younger and older international players, most of whom were bypassed by NHL teams.
“So I think our team would look something similar to that one,” Townshend said. “We wouldn’t have a big superstar, most likely, but we’d have a collection of players that I think could definitely compete. “We’d be relying on some former NHLers. Guys like (Montreal Canadiens defenseman) P.K. Subban (dad Karl Subban is from Jamaica and mom, Maria, hails from Montserrat) and the like wouldn’t be available to us because they’ve played for Canada, but players of that background. Then a collection of high-end juniors/college players who could fill the rest of the roster.”
Jamaica hopes hockey-playing cool runners will accompany its bobsled team to the 2018 Winter Games.
Townshend, who runs youth hockey clinics and camps and served as a skills coach for the San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs, was approached by JOIHF officials in late 2011 about becoming Jamaica’s bench boss. Coaching a team from a warm-weather country without an indoor ice rink and has potential players spread around the globe? Sign me up, Townshend said.
“I’m on the ground floor of something that I think could be special. We’ll see what happens,” he told me. “For me, I think it’s a celebration of the heritage of the island. I’m proud that I came from the island, that my parents came to Canada with nothing and built a good life for ourselves, and hockey was a huge part of it. Jamaicans are great athletes and they’re passionate, and that’s everything that hockey’s all about.”
Jamaica still has quite a few hurdles – pardon the track and field metaphor – to overcome before playing its first official international game. IIHF rules require full member nations to have ice hockey facilities and grassroots hockey programs in place to grow the sport in-country. JOIHF officials say they’re starting street and roller hockey programs. As for the ice hockey facility, that’s going to take more planning and much more fundraising by the non-profit group.
“We’re going down there next month with a delegation and taking a rink person with us,” said Griffin, a long-time youth hockey organizer and official in South Carolina and Michigan. “We’ve reviewed a few places where we could put ice in or maybe a couple of locations where we can build a rink.”
Like Townshend, former Penguins defenseman Jim Paek is tasked with quickly building an Olympic hockey team(Photo/Pittsburgh Penguins).
Jamaica may be at a standing start in its drive for the Winter Games, but its not the only country trying to build a competitive hockey team in a hurry. South Korea, the 2018 Winter Games’ host nation, recently tapped former defenseman Jim Paek, who won Stanley Cups with the PittsburghPenguins in 1991 and 1992, to coach its struggling national team.
Paek’s mission is to improve a team that was relegated to the IIHF’s Division I, Group B after it went 0-5 at the world championship which South Korea hosted last April. The nation is ranked 23rd in the world, wedged between Great Britain and Poland.
“Hockey’s a funny sport,” Paek, 48, told The Toronto Star recently. “Look at the 1980 U.S. team (when collegians won Olympic gold). Not saying we’ll do that, but you never want to set your goals low. You might as well shoot for the stars if you can.”
Townshend says never say never when it comes to South Korea and Jamaica chances on ice.
“I’d say 20 years ago, I was one of those ignorant people that laughed at the notion that Californians and Texans would play in the NHL,” he told me. “Now you’ve got Texans and Californians making the NHL. It’s not too far out of the realm of possibility that you’ll have a Jamaican born and trained player in 20 years.”
The Jamaican Olympic Ice Hockey Federation’s first player tryout is scheduled for August 23 at Westwood Arena, 90 Woodbine Downs Blvd., Etobicoke, Ont., Canada. For sign-up information, visit http://www.JOIHT.org.
