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‘Indian Horse’ Canadian hockey movie finally makes it to the U.S. big screen

03 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Anaheim Ducks, Brandon Montour, Devin Buffalo, Edmonton Oilers, Ethan Bear, Fred Sasakamoose, Greenville Swamp Rabbits, Harvard University, Indian Horse, Maryann Macdonald

“Nobody wants to see an Indian movie.”

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-winning actor/director Clint Eastwood 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 Carey Price 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 hurled racially and culturally insensitive remarks toward the opposing team, the Waywayseecappo Wolverines.

“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 Quebec in Quebec City, Canada.

“Indian Horse,” based on the late author Richard Wagamese’s best-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 apologized for 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 Toronto Maple 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.”

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

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Griffin’s Korea ‘garbage goal’ Olympic puck enters Hockey Hall of Fame

23 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Harvard University, Hockey Hall of Fame, Korean unified team, Phil Pritchard, Randi Griffin

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA – Randi Griffin still can’t believe that someone picked up her “garbage.”

That’s what she calls the goal she scored for the unified Korean women’s hockey team against Japan at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The shot was a weak wrister that bounced on the ice and managed to dribble five-hole past the Japanese goaltender.

Korean-American Randi Griffin scored Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal.

“It was a pretty crappy shot that took a couple of bounces and happened to go into the net,” the forward said after the game. “I got lucky.”

But Griffin quickly learned that one person’s garbage goal is another person’s history. Her goal was the first-ever Korean tally in Winter Olympics history, and someone had the smarts to quickly retrieve the puck from the ice.

It’s now in Toronto getting prepped to be showcased at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I still can’t believe my name will appear in the Hockey Hall of Fame because of a garbage goal, but it’s pretty cool,” she told me. “I also still can’t believe I just played hockey in the Olympics, so I guess it’s the perfect crazy unexpected ending to a crazy unexpected experience.”

The puck that forward Randi Griffin shot into the net for Korea’s first-ever Olympic ice hockey goal (Photo/Phil Pritchard/Hockey Hall of Fame).

Korea unified women’s Olympic hockey team forward Randi Griffin said her goal against Japan wasn’t much of a shot. The Hockey Hall of Fame disagrees (Photo/Phil Pritchard/Hockey Hall of Fame).

Phil Pritchard,  the Hall’s curator, and keeper of the Stanley Cup, told me that the puck will be featured in the shrine’s World of Hockey display then take up permanent residence in the Olympic history display.

“Got the puck here…it is taped details of the goal etc. It’s not signed,” Pritchard told me in an email. “Once I get the artifacts back to the Hockey Hall of Fame, we will preserve, conserve and write up the proper paperwork and get captions made up.”

Embed from Getty Images

Griffin, a North Carolinian and former Harvard University player, is still pinching herself.

“I was honestly really surprised,” she told me.

The daughter of a South Korean mother and white father, Griffin was initially recruited by the Korea Ice Hockey Association in 2014 via an email asking if she’d be interested in joining its Olympic effort.

Griffin, who hadn’t played serious hockey since her senior season at Harvard in 2009-10, thought the email was a hoax and didn’t respond for months.

Once she determined it was real, she flew to South Korea for a mini-camp then joined the country’s national women’s team that would play at the Winter Games in PyeongChang.

Her crazy journey got even crazier when it was announced that 12 players from North Korea’s women’s hockey team would be added to the South Korean roster, creating a unified team.

It was the first time that players from the North and South Korean athletes played together on a single in the Winter Olympics. Initially, there was concern about how the players would bond given the tense political relationship between the two countries.

But the players apparently managed to form some bonds, despite the North Korean skaters sleeping in separate quarters and riding separate buses from the South Korean teammates.

Embed from Getty Images

Griffin, 29, recalled that she spotted some of the North Korean players getting McDonald’s Oreo McFlurries for breakfast in the dining hall at the Olympic Village.

“We all laughed about that and had McFlurries together for breakfast,” Griffin told reporters earlier this week.

The unified team struggled mightily on the ice, getting blown out by Switzerland and Sweden by 8-0 scores. They didn’t win any of its Olympic tournament games and they were outscored by opponents 2 goals to 20.

So when Griffin scored her seeing-eye goal, she knew it was Korea’s first Olympic goal, but she didn’t fully grasp what a big deal it was.

“I knew the goal would mean a lot to Korean supporters who wanted something to cheer for since we were losing games, and it certainly meant a lot to our team, but I didn’t thing anyone outside Korea would care.”

Griffin had designs for the puck – as a keepsake.

“I wanted the puck as a souvenir,” she said. “But obviously now that I know why they took it, I’m happy to let them have it.”

The Korean unified team member expects to have a reunion with the vulcanized rubber biscuit that made Olympic history when she returns to North America.

“I definitely will visit it!” Griffin said.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Randi Griffin skates into hockey history with unified Korean women’s Olympic hockey team

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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2018 Winter Olympics, Harvard University, Randi Griffin

Boston University forward Jordan Greenway, who’ll be the first African-American to play for a U.S. hockey team at the Winter Olympics, isn’t the only American making hockey history.

Randi Griffin of Korea’s unified women’s Olympic hockey tea (Photo/Korean Ice Hockey Association).

Former Harvard University forward Randi Griffin, a North Carolinian of Korean heritage, will also be a part of history as a member of the unified Korean women’s hockey team that will compete at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Feb. 9-25.

When the team takes to the ice for its first game against Switzerland on Feb. 10, it will be the first time in Olympic history that athletes from North and South Korea will be teammates in one sport.

The International Olympic Committee announced Saturday that the two Korean squads will become one by adding 12 players from the North to the existing 23-player South Korean roster.

South Korean Head Coach Sarah Murray, a dual Canadian-American citizen and daughter of former National Hockey League coach Andy Murray, will guide the unified team.

Under the unification agreement forged by the IOC and the North and South Korea Olympic committees, Murray will dress three North Korean players for each game.

Korea’s Randi Griffin (left) in action in an exhibition game against the Connecticut Whale of the National Women’s Hockey League (Photo/Korea Ice Hockey Association).

Griffin, 29, skated for Harvard from 2006-07 to 2009-10. She tallied 21 goals and 18 assists in 124 games for the Crimson.  She joined the South Korean women’s national team in 2015 after receiving an email invite that she initially thought was a scam.

Read more about Griffin’s journey from Apex, N.C., to Cambridge, Mass., to PyeongChang in a story I wrote for McClatchy Newspapers.

NC player ready to skate for historic Korean hockey team at Winter Olympics @williamgdouglas #WinterOlympics :https://t.co/lKCzhEDTAF

— David Lightman (@LightmanDavid) January 20, 2018

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

 

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U.S. and Canada rekindle fierce women’s hockey rivalry in Calgary series

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Darnell Nurse, Edmonton Oilers, Harvard University, Kia Nurse, New York Riveters, Princeton University, Sarah Nurse, University of Wisconsin

While hockey fans anxiously await next month’s World Cup of Hockey and the start of the 2016-17 National Hockey League season in October, there’s quality hockey underway in Calgary where women’s teams from the United States and Canada are resuming one of the fiercest rivalries in sports.

Forget Flyers-Penguins, Red Sox-Yankees, Cowboys and the Washington football team we shall not name, this rivalry between the world’s two best women’s hockey programs has more snarl, more grudge, more passion than any of them.

U of Wisconsin forward Sarah Nurse is one of Team Canada's captains (Photo/Hockey Canada).

U of Wisconsin forward Sarah Nurse is one of Team Canada’s captains (Photo/Hockey Canada).

There’s little friendly in the friendlies that the U.S. and Canadian Under-22 and Under-18 teams will play in the series, which started Wednesday night.

The series has all the ingredients, including talented players of color and, of course, a Nurse.

Forward Sarah Nurse is one of the captains for Canada’s U-22 squad. The Hamilton, Ont., native led the University of Wisconsin women’s team in scoring last season with 25 goals and 13 assists in 36 games.

She is the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse, who starred for Canada in the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship, and Kia Nurse, point guard for the 2015 and 2016 NCAA champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball teams. She played for Canada at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Sarah Nurse was the difference-maker in Canada’s 2-1 win over the U.S. Wednesday, scoring the game-winning goal at 19:37 of the second period.

Highlights from Team USA's 2-1 loss to Canada in the 2016 Women's Under-22 Series opener. #U22Serieshttps://t.co/8AiSyqqsH4

— USA Hockey (@usahockey) August 18, 2016

Boston University’s Victoria Bach opened the scoring with a goal at 8:03 in the second. Harvard University Forward Sydney Daniels scored for the U.S. at 02:41 of the third period.

Canada's U-22 team goes up against its U.S. counterpart in Calgary. Sarah Nurse, fourth from the right. Katilin Tse, second row, seventh from the left.

Canada’s U-22 team goes up against its U.S. counterpart in Calgary. Sarah Nurse, fourth from the right. Katilin Tse, second row, seventh from the left.

Joining Nurse on Canada’s U-22 squad is Harvard defenseman Kaitlin

Harvard University defenseman Kaitlin Tse (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Harvard University defenseman Kaitlin Tse (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Tse, who registered an assist on Bach’s goal Wednesday night.  Tse played 32 games in 2015-16 as a freshman for the Crimson, tallying a goal and 10 assists.

She was a member of Canada’s Silver Medal-winning team at the 2015 IIHF Under-18 World Championship and the 2014 Canadian squad that defeated the U.S. in a three-game series in 2014

Like Nurse, she comes from an athletic family. Her older brother, Matthew Tse, plays for Hong Kong’s national lacrosse team.

USA Hockey National Women's U-22 team. Kelsey Koelzer. second row, fifth from the right. (Photo/Nancie Battaglia).

USA Hockey National Women’s U-22 team. Kelsey Koelzer. second row, fifth from the right. (Photo/Nancie Battaglia).

Princeton University's Kelsey Koelzer (Photo/Nancie Battaglia)

Princeton University’s Kelsey Koelzer (Photo/Nancie Battaglia)

Nurse and Tse will face Team USA’s Kelsey Koelzer, a defenseman from Princeton University. The junior from Horsham, Pa., notched 17 goals and 16 assists in 33 games for the Tigers last season and finished second on the team with 8 game-winning goals.

Her game balances with offense and defense: she took 122 shots and blocked 61 pucks last season. The New York Riveters chose Koelzer in the first round of the 2016  National Women’s Hockey League Draft last month.

Defenseman Avery Mitchell is representing Canada

Defenseman Avery Mitchell (Photo/Hockey Canada).

Defenseman Avery Mitchell (Photo/Hockey Canada).

on its U-18 squad. She’s a blue-liner for the Toronto Jr. Aeros of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League.

Mitchell tallied 3 goals and 11 assists in 34 games for the Aeros last season. She collected a Bronze Medal playing for Ontario Blue at the 2015 National Women’s Under-18 Championship in Huntsville, Ont.

She’s committed to play hockey at New York’s Clarkson University in 2017-18. Clarkson has three current and former players on Team Canada’s rosters.

Canada's 2016 Under-18 women's team faces the United States in a three-game series in Calgary. Defenseman Avery Mitchell is the fifth person from the left, back row.

Canada’s 2016 Under-18 women’s team faces the United States in a three-game series in Calgary. Defenseman Avery Mitchell is the fifth person from the left, back row.

 

 

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Surgery behind her, an Eagle looks to soar to NCAA title, Winter Olympics slot

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Arizona Coyotes, Boston College, Harvard University, Kaliya Johnson, Mighty Ducks

Suffering a concussion is usually a bad thing for a hockey player. But for Kaliya Johnson, it proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Johnson, a defenseman on Boston College’s women’s hockey team, suffered a concussion with debilitating symptoms that lasted beyond four months.

From the sun-drenched West Coast to snowy New England, Kaliya Johnson helps anchor Boston College's blue line.

From the sun-drenched West Coast to snowy New England, Kaliya Johnson helps anchor Boston College’s blue line.

An MRI done before the start of BC’s 2014-15 Hockey East season revealed the true source of Johnson’s problem: a Chiari malformation, a structural condition of the brain and spinal cord that contributes to a smaller than normal space for the brain, pressing it downward. In many cases, people aren’t aware they have the ailment.

“Basically, my brain was sitting below the base of my skull. It was something I was born with,” Johnson told me recently. “I had symptoms all my life – little things like pressure headaches, getting migraines. I thought it was normal for me.”

In September, doctors performed surgery that “opened up some space and removed the first vertebrae in my neck, so there was more room to breathe back there,” Johnson said.

Given the physical nature of hockey, Johnson’s condition was discovered in the nick of time.

“It could have been a lot more damaging if I would have continued to keep playing and I got hit in the head wrong, or my back,” she said “It would have been permanently damaging. I feel great now.”

Johnson, a junior, was back on the ice in November and has been a stalwart on the Boston College Eagles’ defense ever since.

The Eagles, the nation’s top-ranked Division I women’s hockey team, suffered a 3-2 defeat to fourth-ranked Harvard University Tuesday night in the championship game of the 37th annual Women’s Beanpot Tournament at Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center.

Still, it seems fitting that Johnson plays for a hockey team nicknamed after a bird. She has logged a lot of frequent flier miles traveling for the love of hockey.

Boston College's Kaliya Johnson takes flight on the ice.

Boston College’s Kaliya Johnson takes flight on the ice with the puck.

She got interested in hockey after watching “The Mighty Ducks” movie when she was two years old and living in Los Angeles. And after learning how to skate at the Culver Ice Arena and developing some serious hockey skills, she joined the Anaheim Lady Ducks, a program that has sent several players to the top NCAA women’s hockey powerhouses over the years.

Like ducks and eagles, Johnson knows a thing or two about flying. As Johnson’s youth hockey career was taking off in Southern California her mother, Kellie, decided to relocate the family to Arizona.

“I think she just wanted to change and where I was, the school system wasn’t the greatest,” she said.

Even though Arizona had the National Hockey League’s Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes, various incarnations of the Phoenix Roadrunners in various leagues, club hockey at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, the state still wasn’t a youth hockey hotbed while Johnson was growing up.

“They had a boy’s league and I played in it for a year,” she told me recently. “It was the year I went from squirts to pee wee and they started checking. It got too physical and I broke my arm. I got hit pretty badly and I landed on my elbow. So after that, I decided that I would stick to girl’s hockey. But there wasn’t a team competitive enough for me in Arizona or one that had a well developed program where I could go out and play other competitive teams.”

So she kept playing with the Lady Ducks. Every other weekend Johnson’s mother would drive her 12-year-old daughter to the airport and watch her board a plane to Anaheim by herself.

“It was about a 1 1/2, 2-hour flight,” said Johnson, now 20 years old. “I went by myself and one of my good friends’ mother on my team would pick me up at the airport and I’d stay with them.”

“It  was a big sacrifice for my family,” she added. “I’m sure it was hard on her to have her daughter leaving that young almost every other weekend. But she was very supportive and encouraged me to follow my dream. That’s what I wanted to do.”

Boston College's Kaliya Johnson against arch-rival Boston University.

Boston College’s Kaliya Johnson against arch-rival Boston University.

Johnson earned even more frequent flier miles in high school when she was recruited to attend the North American Hockey Academy, an elite girl’s program in snowy Stowe, Vt. – nearly 2,800 miles from her family’s home in sun-drenched Chandler, Ariz.

“They had two hockey teams there, all girls, and there were about 40 of us,” she said. “We would move up there in late September and we would play the season. They had a league and everything established. We lived in an old resort ski lodge and there was private tutoring. We would travel almost every weekend to play league games and  tournaments. When the season was over, I’d fly back to Arizona and finish the school  year there.”

Johnson’s hockey prowess caught the eyes of USA Hockey. She was a member of the development program’s Under-18 team that won the Silver Medal at the 2011-12 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship.

At Boston College, Johnson has tallied one goal, five assists, and six penalty minutes in 20 games this season.

She’s hoping that her her strong defensive play, and the Eagles making a run for their first NCAA Division I women’s hockey title, will catch USA Hockey’s attention once again and lead to more flying: to PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018 as a member U.S. women’s Olympic ice hockey team.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the Olympics and be able to represent Team USA,” she said. “My goal is to get back on their (USA Hockey’s) radar.”

In the meantime, Johnson is focused on helping the Eagles soar to an NCAA hockey title.

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From Larry Kwong to Brad Kwong, celebrating hockey’s rich Asian legacy

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

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Atlanta Flames, Boston Bruins, Brad Kwong, Calgary Flames, Canadian Football League, Dubuque Fighting Saints, Harvard University, Larry Kwong, Minnesota Wild, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Norman "Normie" Kwong, USHL

Brad Kwong has gone from the Ivy League to corn country for the love of hockey, adding to the game’s rich Asian history along the way.

Kwong, a defenseman who captained Harvard University’s hockey team in 1984-85, is part of the group that owns the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League, the top junior league in the country. When Northern Lights, LLC purchased the team in 2009, Kwong became part of a growing number of people of color – many of them Asian – in hockey’s ownership ranks, from the junior leagues to the National Hockey League.

“I have the benefit of having some really good partners that helped me get along in this profession,” Kwong told me recently. “I don’t ever recall an encounter where I was compromised or biased because of my ethnicity. And that might be me just having the blinders on or being naïve to it. But I think this sport in particular, because I lived through it, and in business in general, if you prove that you have a certain acumen, drive, and initiative you can succeed in anything.”

Brad Kwong, center, congratulates on of his team's players (Photo/Dubuque Fighting Saints).

Brad Kwong, center, congratulates on of his team’s players (Photo/Dubuque Fighting Saints).

Harvard crimson and business ties run deep through the Fighting Saints ownership: Kwong,  Phillip Falcone, Northern Lights’s principal owner and part owner of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and Peter Chiarelli, general manager of the Boston Bruins, played hockey together at Harvard in the 1980s. Mark Falcone, another Northern Lights managing partner and a Minnesota Wild board member, played hockey for the University of Denver hockey player. Phillip Falcone is chief investment officer of Harbinger Capital Partners, a Wall Street private hedge fund, and Kwong is a managing partner in the firm.

“Our experience at Harvard actually changed the courses of our lives,” Kwong said. “We all believed that hockey, most notably college hockey, changed the trajectory  of our lives. So we wanted to give back to the sport and college hockey and obviously the USHL being the primary feeder of players to NCCA Division I hockey was a great platform to do that.”

The 50-year-old Kwong may have good partners assisting him in the hockey business, but he also learned a lesson or two from his dad. Norman “Normie” Kwong was a star running back Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. But he was also part of the ownership group that bought the NHL’s Atlanta Flames and moved the team to Calgary in 1980.

When the Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989, the elder Kwong became one of the few people whose names are etched on both the CFL’s Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup.

“He, of course, back in the 40s and 50s, experienced the racial stuff,” the younger Kwong said of his father, who also served as lieutenant governor of Alberta from 2005 to 2010. “He always just fought through it, never saw himself as different, and just kind of worked hard and achieved a lot, regardless of his race. He always instilled in my brothers and I to just do your best, work hard, and you’ll achieve the goals you set out for yourself.”

 Kwong, front row, center, was captain of Harvard's 1984-85 hockey team (Photo/Harvard University).

Kwong, front row, center, was captain of Harvard’s 1984-85 hockey team (Photo/Harvard University).

Brad and Norman Kwong aren’t the only family members with hockey ties. Graham Lee, Brad Kwong’s cousin, is owner and governor of the Victoria Royals of the Western Hockey League. Lee’s company, RG Properties, built and operates the 7,000-seat Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, the arena where the Royals play.

Lee and the Kwongs are part of a history of Asian ownership in hockey. The Tampa Bay Lightning began its NHL life under a Japanese ownership group. Shanghai-born and New York-raised Charles Wang, owns the New York Islanders, an NHL franchise that’s currently up for sale. Chicago-based businessman Horn Chen is a minority owner of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.

The media-shy Chen once told The Chicago Sun-Times that he became interested in hockey when his son played in a youth tournament in Indianapolis. That interest launched Chen on a team-buying binge: He founded the Central Hockey League and owned the CHL’s Wichita Thunder, Topeka Tarantulas, Oklahoma City Blazers and Mississippi RiverKings. He also owned the International Hockey League’s Indianapolis Ice, the East Coast Hockey League’s Columbus Chill, the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders (briefly) and several minor league football, baseball, and basketball teams.

Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi.

Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi.

Asian-American and Asian-Canadians have had an impact on the ice as well. Forward Paul Kayria, who’s of Japanese descent, was the first hockey player of Asian descent to captain an NHL team when he was awarded the “C’ by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.  Defenseman Jim Paek, who’s of Korean heritage,won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990s. Seoul-born right wing Richard Park enjoyed a long NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Minnesota Wild, Philadelphia Flyers, Vancouver Canucks and the Islanders.

Asian players currently in the NHL include Winnipeg Jets forward Devin Setoguchi, who’s Japanese-Canadian, and Carolina Hurricanes forward Manny Malhotra, who’s Indo-Canadian.

Hockey has come a long way since Larry Kwong became the first Chinese-Canadian – and some historians argue the first person of color – to play in the NHL when he skated a single one-minute shift for the New York Rangers  in a game against the Montreal Canadiens at the Montreal Forum during the 1947-48 season. A decade later, in 1958, Willie O’Ree became the NHL’s first black player when he skated for the Bruins, ironically, against the Canadiens.

Hockey has come a long way from the days when Larry Kwong, center,  played (Photo/Chad Soon).

Hockey has come a long way from the days when Larry Kwong, center, played (Photo/Chad Soon).

Larry Kwong, who was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame last September at age 90, isn’t related to Brad Kwong, the two men share a sort of six degrees of separation that causes Brad to chuckle when recalling an episode that happened while he was playing professional hockey in Europe post-Harvard undergrad.

“There was a time in San Moritz, a group of fans came down, said hello, and said they knew my father,” he said. “My father had a reasonable amount of fame in Canada, but I didn’t think it extended to Switzerland. Obviously, it didn’t. They meant Larry, who played hockey in Switzerland at one point in his career. When I was 8-9 years old, he had moved back to Calgary and given that my parents knew him, he offered to teach my older brother and I tennis.”

Brad Kwong believes he’ll have company in the owner’s club in the not-too-distant future as minority players currently in professional hockey get older and transition into the next phase of their careers.

“As the numbers increase you’re going to have more people like me who played the game, who want to stay part of the game, which is my primary motivation, and I would imagine they’d stay involve in some way whether it be coach, general manager, owner, business president, whatever,” he said. “The sport is a fascinating sport. And I think once you’ve been exposed to it, you’re going to get more and more people, regardless of their color, wanting to be a part of it.”

 

 

 

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Thomas, Wade take long and winding road to Notre Dame University

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Amherst College, Buffalo Sabres, Des Moines Buccaneers, Fargo Force, Fighting Irish, Harvard University, Julie Chu, Mike Grier, Tarasai Karega, University of Notre Dame, University of Toronto, USHL

It’s fascinating to discover where hockey can take a player both geographically and academically.

For Ali Thomas the love of the game has taken him from the bustling Bronx, N.Y., to the corn fields of Iowa to the shadow of the “Touchdown Jesus” mural in South Bend, Indiana. Justin Wade’s hockey sojourn began in scenic Aurora, Illinois, with stops in Fargo, North Dakota and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before reaching the place known for Knute Rockne, winning one for “The Gipper,” and the football movie “Rudy.”

Ali Thomas goes from NYC to Des Moines to Notre Dame in hopes of NHL career.

Ali Thomas goes from NYC to Des Moines to Notre Dame in hopes of NHL career.

Thomas and Wade are freshmen on the University of Notre Dame’s hockey team, the first black players to skate for the Fighting Irish. Both hope their journey to South Bend leads them to another destination – the National Hockey League.

“My dream is to play in the NHL,” Thomas told me recently. “Here, right now, I’m at Notre Dame, I want to get a degree here and be able to play college hockey and hopefully fulfill my dream of playing in the National Hockey League.”

Wade seconded Thomas’ thought. “I definitely have NHL aspirations, but I look at it as taking it one step at a time,” he told me. “I’m looking at college right now, making the stepping stones to being as successful as possible in the hockey and in college.”

Notre Dame Hockey Coach Jeff Jackson believes that Thomas, a 6-foot-2, 211-pound left wing, and Wade, a 6-foot-2, 203-pound defenseman, have the tools to succeed in NCAA Division I hockey.

Thomas arrived in South Bend from The United States Hockey League’s Des Moines Buccaneers where he scored 6 goals and 9 assists in 43 games last season. The rugged winger also collected 118 penalty minutes.

Justin Wade played in Fargo, N.D., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before landing at Notre Dame. Is NHL next?

Justin Wade played in Fargo, N.D., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before landing at Notre Dame. Is NHL next?

“Ali is a big left winger with the size to be an excellent power forward,” Jackson said shortly after Thomas and Wade signed early letters of intent last November to attend Notre Dame. “When he plays within himself, playing physical and going to the net he’s a very effective player. He will be a power guy, a net drive player and a physical force for us in the future.”

Wade collected 2 goals, 6 assists, and 87 penalty minutes in 43 games for the USHL’s Cedar Rapids RoughRiders after being traded from the Fargo Force. He scored 1 goal, 1 assist and registered 34 penalty minutes in 17 games for Fargo.

Wade “is a good stay-at-home defenseman with excellent leadership skills,” Jackson said. “I expect him to give us more of an edge physically in our zone and in front of the net.”

Notre Dame plays in the tough Hockey East conference with Boston College, Boston University, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts, UMass Lowell, Merrimack College, University of Vermont, University of New Hampshire, Northeastern University, and Providence College.

The Fighting Irish are ranked seventh in the nation in a recent USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine preseason poll. Hockey East’s UMass Lowell was ranked first, Boston College fourth, New Hampshire, 13th and Providence 15th.

Thomas and Wade chose to hone their skills in the USHL, a high-level junior league comprised of 16 teams located throughout the Midwest. That meant leaving home as teenagers to head to unfamiliar surroundings.

“Hockey in New York City is very scarce,” Thomas,  now 21, told me. “In my youth, I played in Connecticut and New Jersey. When I was a senior in high school I moved to Chicago and lived with a billet family. Then I played in Chicago my senior year, then I got drafted by the USHL the following year by the Chicago Steel. I played a season and a little bit in Chicago, then get traded to Des Moines about a month and a half into the season.”

He admitted to suffering “a huge culture shock” from being a big-city kid living in Iowa.

Notre Dame expects Ali Thomas to blossom into a power forward.

Notre Dame expects Ali Thomas to blossom into a power forward.

“Going from seeing building, after building, after building in New York City to seeing farmland and open spaces everywhere was quite a change,” he told me. “I actually liked Iowa because there’s less traffic there. A mile takes three minutes compared to 45 (minutes) in New York City.”

Wade left home at 16 for Fargo, about a 632-mile, 10-hour drive from Aurora.

“Obviously, it was a big move for me,” said Wade, 19. “It was really exciting but at the same time I was nervous about it. But I enjoyed the experience, I got to be in a different environment, and I feel I matured.”

Wade found Fargo to “be really nice. The town was really accepting, I really liked the town.” But he only stayed two-and-a-half seasons there before being traded to Cedar Rapids.

“Going to Fargo…I had a family I lived with, I felt like I had another family there in a way, people I got to know really well,” Wade said. “It was over less than 24 hours I had to leave and go start with a new family. That was a really different experience for me. But in hockey, it’s something that you know happens and happens often. So you just have to accept it, go forward and continue moving on.”

The decision by both players to take the college hockey route rather chasing their NHL dreams by joining major junior hockey teams in the United States or Canada was the right way to go, according to Brett Peterson, a former Boston College hockey player who’s one of two black sports agents in the world with hockey clients.

All eight of players of color chosen in the 2013 NHL Draft came from the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League or other major junior conferences. Of the eight, only defenseman Seth Jones, the fourth overall pick by the Nashville Predators, remains in an NHL training camp.

“The way the NHL is structured today, you don’t want to get there too fast,” Peterson told me. “If you go major junior, that means that you have to be ready to play professional hockey at 20 because that’s when you age out (of juniors). If you go college, you’re adding another three years to your shelf life before you have to be ready to play NHL hockey because you don’t enter college until you’re 18 or 19.”

Peterson said college also gives players “time to grow both physically and mentally.”

“College allows kids to have, in my opinion, just more life experiences than the major junior route because there’s more time,” he added. “Major juniors, they play 70 games, they travel, they have bus trips. In college, you don’t play the first month-and-a-half that you’re on campus and you don’t play the last month-and-a-half to two months on campus. You’re allowed to be a young man and grow.”

Justin Wade is expected to bring size and leadership on Notre Dame's defense.

Justin Wade is expected to bring size and leadership on Notre Dame’s defense.

Wade and Thomas are among a growing number of players of color who are playing college hockey at all levels – from NCAA Division I to American Collegiate Association club hockey teams.

They’re following in the skates of players like retired Buffalo Sabres forward Mike Grier, who starred at Boston University; New York Islanders forward Kyle Okposo, a University of Minnesota alum; Darren Lowe, a University of Toronto forward who in 1984 became the first black player on a Canadian Winter Olympics team. He’s now the head hockey coach of his alma mater;  Chris Nelson, defenseman for the University of Wisconsin in the late 1980s; Robbie Earl, a University of Wisconsin forward who helped the Badgers win the NCAA hockey championship in 2006; Julie Chu, a former Harvard University forward who’ll play for the U.S. in her fourth Winter Olympics this February; and Tarasai Karega, an Amherst College graduate who’s the first black woman to win an NCAA hockey championship.

“There’s a big wave of us coming through and it makes me happy to see that,” Thomas told me. “Why not have the diversity in the sport? It’s not hurting the sport, if anything it’s being promoted on the NHL level more than it has ever been promoted before. Hockey is getting a new face, and I think it’s a good thing for the sport.”

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