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Some big questions for some players of color ahead of the 2018-19 NHL season

11 Tuesday Sep 2018

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National Hockey League training camps open this week and the season begins October 3 with the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals facing the Boston Bruins.

The 2017-18 NHL season is chock full of interesting story lines involving players of color that are worth paying attention to. Here are a few:

N.Y. Islanders forward Joshua Ho-Sang starts the 2017-18 season with a clean slate with new coach and GM.

THE NEW YORK ISLANDERS AND JOSH HO-SANG. CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? It’s safe to say that the Islanders and right wing  Joshua Ho-Sang, the team’s 2014 first-round draft pick, have fit as well as an ice skating rink inside Brooklyn’s basketball-perfect Barclays Center.

Previous Islanders management complained that Ho-Sang was too head strong and defensively insufficient, among other things. Ho-Sang griped that the old Islanders brain trust overlooked similar deficiencies of other players and unjustly banished him to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, the Isles’ American Hockey League farm team, while others skated scot free.

Well, there are new sheriffs on Long Island in General Manager Lou Lamoriello and Head Coach Barry Trotz, who guided the Capitals to the Cup last season by getting the best out of superstar forward Alex Ovechkin, and they seem determined to make the Isles/Ho-Sang marriage work.

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Trotz and Lamoriello say Ho-Sang starts off with a clean slate under their regime And Ho-Sang appears to be singing from the same hymnal.

“Josh has to be part of our future,” Trotz told Stan Fischler last month. “He’s a talent who needs to be understood better than he has been. In this case, Lou will be good. My belief is that the kid has been misunderstood because he looks at the game differently.”

Ho-Sang told NHL.com that the new management has “been tremendous in working with me and talking to me. ”

“I really don’t want to get into what they’ve talked to me about, but it’s all been positive,” he told NHL.com. “Every conversation that I’ve had with them since the moment they became part of the organization has just been teaching.”

In addition to featuring a new attitude, Ho-Sang will feature a new number with the Islanders, if he makes the team, because notoriously old school Lamoriello has squashed players wearing high-numbered jerseys for 2018-19.

Ho-Sang wore No. 66 in previous stints with the Isles, which caused many hockey purists to lose their minds because it was Hockey Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux’s number during his glory years with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ho-Sang will wear No. 26.

Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds is in the final year of a six-year deal.

WHAT ABOUT WAYNE?  Philadelphia Flyers right wing Wayne Simmonds enters the season in the last year of his six-year, $23.85 million contract. Talks about an extension with one of the team’s most prolific goal scorers have been slow, raising question about whether the Flyers are interested in jumping off and moving on from the “Wayne Train.”

Adding fuel to the speculation are the Flyers’ free agent signing of former Toronto Maple Leafs left wing James Van Riemsdyk and the late 2017-18 rise of  19-year-old center Nolan Patrick, the Flyers’ 2017 first-round draft pick.

Like Simmonds, Patrick and Van Riemsdyk are net-front players who score bunches of goals by parking themselves in front of opposing goaltenders in hopes of tip-in shots or fat rebounds.

And Simmonds is coming off a down scoring season – sort of.  He had 24 goals and 22 assists in 75 regular season games last season and no goals and 2 assists in six Stanley Cup Playoff contests.

His 24 goals came after he scored 31 in 2016-17 and 32 in 2015-16. Some context here: Simmonds managed the 24 goals despite a laundry list of injuries that included a tear in his pelvic area, a pulled groin, fractured ankle, torn ligament in his thumb and a busted mouth twice. Still, he only missed seven games last season.

Flyers General Manager Ron Hextall insists that the team would like to retain Simmonds and Simmonds has indicated that he wants to finish his playing career in Philadelphia.

“For being injured, I didn’t have a bad season last year, but it’s still not to my best ability” Simmonds told reporters in August. “So we continue to talk, we continue to talk. It is what it is right now.”

Forward Nick Suzuki, a former Vegas Golden Knights 2017 first-round draft, was traded to Montreal.

WILL THE MONTREAL CANADIENS RIDE SUZUKI BACK TO THE PLAYOFFS? The Canadiens finally ended the Max Paciorietty saga Monday by trading the high-scoring left wing and team captain to the Vegas Golden Knights for center Nick Suzuki, who was a Knights’ 2017 first-round draft pick, forward Tomas Tatar, and a 2019 second-round draft pick.

The trade caused howls among many Canadiens fans who still suffer bad flashbacks from the the team swapping defenseman P.K. Subban to the Nashville Predators for blue-liner Shea Weber in June 2016 and shipping all-world goaltender Patrick Roy to the Colorado Avalanche in December 1995.

The Paciorietty trade may look lopsided sided now – he has 226 goals and 222 assists in 626 NHL regular season games – But the 19-year-old Suzuki is no slouch. He impressed the Golden Knights in the team inaugural training camp, though he didn’t make the team last season.

Instead, Suzuki lit it up with the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League in 2017-18. He tallied 42 goals and 58 assists in 64 OHL regular season games. He had 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games in 2016-17.

“Suzuki was the key piece because we like a young prospect that was picked 13th overall, which I believe at the time we had at 11 on our list,” Montreal General Manager Marc Bergevin told reporters after the trade.

The question is when will Suzuki arrive in Montreal? The OHL is one thing, the NHL is another. Some prospects need time and patience – things that are often in short supply in in hockey-crazed Montreal.

WILL THE KIDS STICK? A number of highly-touted prospects who’ve already had a small tastes of the NHL are heading to training camps looking to stay in the big leagues.

Minnesota Wild rookie left wing Jordan Greenway had a dream season in 2017-18: Becoming the first African-American to play on a U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team, skate for Hockey East champion Boston University, and play for the Wild in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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Now the 21-year-old, Wild 2015  second-round draft pick has got to grind it out in training camp to land a permanent job in Minnesota.

“We’re just looking at his smarts, how he adjusts,” Wild first-year General Manager Paul Fenton told The Athletic at the NHL Prospect Tournament in Traverse City, Michigan. “Being able to play in the Olympics gave him a different dimension to where he was playing in college hockey. To turn pro and play in the playoffs, from afar I was watching and he looked like he adjusted to the pro game right away. That’s what we’re looking to see – how he was able to take the summer and take his maturity an go forward.”

Calgary Flames rookie forward Spencer Foo scored 2 goals in four NHL games last season.

The Calgary Flames are doing the same thing with right wing Spencer Foo and defenseman Oliver Kylington.

Foo, a high-scoring, highly-coveted free agent from NCAA Division I Union College, signed with Calgary in June 2017, appeared in four games with the Flames late in 2017-18 and scored 2 goals.

“It’s going to be a blast,” Foo told Canada’s Global News of the upcoming season. “First game of the season is always exciting whether it’s exhibition or not. I think everyone’s pretty pumped.”

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Foo spent most of the 2017-18 season with the Stockton Heat, the Flames’ AHL farm team, where he was third in scoring with 20 goals and 19 assists in 62 regular season games.

He was there with Kylington, a 21-year-old  blue-liner from Stockholm, Sweden. Kylington was the team’s seventh-leading scorer with 7 goals and 28 assists in 62 regular season contests.

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“There’s a spot available” on the Calgary roster, Kylington told The Montreal Gazette. “And it’s a lot of work to get that spot. I feel ready, I’ve been training hard this summer and putting a lot of grind in the gym and mentally preparing myself for this year and this camp.”

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Dr. Joel Boyd, the NHL’s first black team physician, is Wild about hockey

26 Sunday Aug 2018

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Call Dr. Joel Boyd an original.

He’s been taking care of broken bones, meniscus tears and other serious upper and lower body injuries as the Minnesota Wild’s physician and orthopedic surgeon since the team’s inception in 2000.

Dr. Joel Boyd (Photo/Minnesota Wild).

Before he became the National Hockey League’s first black team physician, Dr. Boyd was the physician for the U.S. men’s hockey team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan – the first Olympiad that featured squads comprised of NHL players.

“There weren’t very many African-American team physicians, period, especially at the pro level,” Dr. Boyd recalled. “And you consider how many African-Americans are playing the game, almost no matter what game you’re talking about, aside from hockey. At the time, there were no Major League Baseball black team physicians, no National Football League black head team physicians…”

Dr. Boyd has helped change that in a big way.  In addition to caring for Wild players, he’s the team physician for University of Minnesota football, the former team doc for the NFL Minnesota Vikings (He was the NFL’s second black team physician) and former physician for the Minnesota Lynx of the National Women’s Basketball Association.

Dr. Joel Boyd, second row, served as team physician for the U.S. men’s hockey team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, the first Olympiad that allowed NHL players to participate (Photo/USA Hockey).

He didn’t set out to be a hockey doc. Football was Dr. Boyd’s main game, having been a star running back at Bucknell University in the late 1970s.

But hockey always seemed to be in the background. He knew a bit about the game from growing up in the District of Columbia and watching a woeful 1974-75 Washington Capitals expansion team that featured Mike Marson, a rookie forward who became the NHL’s second black player.

“My friends and I would go and watch them play because they had a black player and we were, like, ‘Wow, we’ve got to see this,'” Dr. Boyd said. “It was just, like, ‘Wow, that’s awesome.'”

Dr. Joel Boyd was first drawn to hockey by the woeful expansion 1974-75 Washington Capitals and the exploits of rookie forward Mike Marson, who was the NHL’s second black player (Photo/Washington Capitals).

But hockey fell off of Dr. Boyd’s radar as he turned his attention to football and his studies at Bucknell in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and later at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

Hockey re-entered his world during a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Western Ontario in Canada where part of his training dealt with hockey injuries.

Dr. Boyd pulled double-duty at UWO, keeping with his fellowship while putting his Bucknell gridiron experience to use by serving as running backs coach for the Canadian university’s championship football team.

Dr. Joel Boyd, the NHL’s first black team physician, hangs out with Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first black player, at the 2017 NHL All-Star Game in Los Angeles (Photo/Courtesy Dr. Joel Boyd).

The team had several black players from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who told Dr. Boyd about how scores of African-Americans fled the U.S. South to the Canadian Maritimes to escape the dehumanizing scourge of slavery.

There, they established the Coloured Hockey League, whose players authors George and Darril Fosty credit with creating some of the elements of modern hockey, including the slap shot and butterfly goaltending.

Dr. Boyd’s hockey involvement grew through a United States Olympic Committee training program for physicians that led to opportunities with USA Hockey.

By the mid-1990s, he was serving as a physician for the old Minnesota Moose of the International Hockey League and for USA Hockey’s Under-17 teams and international squads.

He advanced in USA Hockey’s medical ranks to serve as national team physician from 1996 to 2000. His USA Hockey affiliation also began a sort of six degrees of separation chain that led to Dr. Boyd’s hiring by the Wild.

Through USA Hockey, Dr. Boyd met Bryant McBride, who was an architect of the NHL Diversity Task Force, the predecessor of the league’s “Hockey is for Everyone” initiative.

The initiative provides support and unique programming to some 30 nonprofit youth hockey organizations across North America, offering kids of all backgrounds the opportunity to play the game and learn life lessons through the prism of hockey.

Working with McBride and the diversity task force, Dr. Boyd met Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first black player and the league’s diversity ambassador.

A light bulb clicked on in Dr. Boyd’s mind.

Dr. Joel Boyd, the NHL’s first black team physician, said he’s learned a lot about hockey from talking to Willie O’Ree, who became the league’s first black player in 1958 (Photo/Courtesy Dr. Joel Boyd).

“The whole thing started coming together in terms of what I learned in Canada about Halifax, meeting Willie, and putting the pieces together about blacks and hockey,” Dr. Boyd said.

Dr. Boyd’s task force work also put him into NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s orbit. Impressed the doctor’s career, Bettman put in a good word on his behalf with the expansion Wild’s ownership team.

“There were a number of people who helped support me locally, getting me to know the ownership group,” Dr. Boyd said. “But one of the big letters for me was actually from Gary Bettman. At that point, I had already been working with the Diversity Task Force for several years, so I had gotten to know Gary. I still have that letter he sent to the ownership group. That was sort of the beginning.”

In addition to serving as the Minnesota Wild’s team physician, Dr. Joel Boyd was the team physician for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Here, he’s tending to former Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (Photo/Courtesy Dr. Joel Boyd).

Now, Dr. Boyd can be found in an office along the main corridor of St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center during most Wild home games, hoping that none of the players on the ice suddenly require his attention, but standing ready if they do.

“I love the game,” he said. “My boys love playing hockey. They played here in high school, my youngest son coaches at the high school where he went to school. They both played club hockey at Dartmouth.”

As for their dad?  “I look back and kind of go, ‘If I had learned to skate early, this might have been the sport for me,'” Dr. Boyd said with a laugh.

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K’Andre Miller Broadway-bound as N.Y. Rangers take him in 2018 NHL Draft

23 Saturday Jun 2018

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DALLAS – K’Andre Miller enjoys being a myth-breaker. Now he’ll get a chance to do it on Broadway.

Miller, a smooth-skating defenseman with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, was selected by the New York Rangers with the 22nd overall pick of the 2018 National Hockey League Draft in Dallas Friday night.

The Rangers traded up in the draft with the Ottawa Senators for a chance to grab Miller.

“It means the world to have a team to want you that bad to trade for you,” Miller told reporters. “For them to have that opportunity for me, it’s pretty cool, I’m excited.”

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He’s also excited about the prospect of playing in a diverse market like New York to further help shatter stereotypes about blacks and ice hockey and spread the message that hockey is indeed for everyone.

“Being African-American, the opportunity doesn’t come that often. I worked very hard to be in this position,” he said. “And for all the young kids out there, anything’s possible. I was a kid just a little while ago and to be here really means a lot.”

The 6-foot-2, 205-pound native of Minnetonka, Minnesota, said people sometimes ask if he was a basketball player because of his size and frame.

“It’s always been my motivation to prove to people that no matter what your skin color is, what you look like in general, you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it,” Miller told me last year. “When I see people of color in my community in Minnetonka and Hopkins trying to play hockey, I always go up to them whenever I can and straight-up tell them ‘Don’t listen to what anybody says. Play whatever you want to play, if it’s hockey, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, whatever you want to do. Just do it.’”

Miller, 18, a mobile defenseman, moved up NHL Central Scouting’s draft rankings over the season, jumping to 23rd-best North American skater from 31st at mid-season.

Miller looks forward to playing in the NHL someday. But first he’ll play for the University of Wisconsin, starting next season.

Miller had 7 goals and 17 assists in 50 games. Not bad for a player who switched to defense from forward two seasons ago. He skated for the U.S. at the 2018 IIHF U18 world juniors, scoring a goal and 2 assists in seven games.

K’Andre Miller was exposed to the NHL at an early age, taking part in a commercial for the league when he was 10. With him, left to right, are retired forwards Pat LaFontaine and Neal Broten and former goaltender Mike Richter (Photo/Courtesy USA Hockey).

“I’m a defenseman that’s real hard to play against, offensive-defensive zone,” Miller said.

The Rangers will have to wait a while for Miller’s Broadway debut. He’ll play for the University of Wisconsin Badgers and former Rangers forward Tony Granato this fall.

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Miller traces his interest in becoming a professional hockey player to Minnesota Wild team captain Mikko Koivu.

“For my ninth birthday, I went down to Dallas to watch the Stars play the Wild,” Miller told me last year. “We went down to the locker room after the game and Mikko came up to me, shook my hand, said happy birthday, and asked when the next time I would be at a home game in Minnesota because he was going to try to get me a stick.

“I went back to the rink in Minnesota about two months later and he picked me out in the stands, he had the trainer come up with a stick and hand it right to me,” Miller added. “That was probably the coolest experience I think I’ve ever had with an NHL player.”

Erica L. Ayala contributed to this report.

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U.S. Olympian Jordan Greenway makes NHL debut with Minnesota Wild

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Jordan Greenway didn’t register a point Tuesday night, but the massive forward still managed to score a hat trick.

Making his National Hockey League debut with the Minnesota Wild against the Nashville Predators in Music City, Greenway skated for his third team on three different hockey levels in a six-week span.

He ended his collegiate career Saturday when Boston University lost to the University of Michigan 6-3 in the Northeast Regional final of the NCAA Frozen Four tournament.

Last month, Greenway represented the United States at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, becoming the first African-American to play hockey for the U.S. in the Winter Games.

He donned a Wild jersey after he signed a three-year entry level contract Monday. The Wild took the 6-foot-6, 226-pound Greenway in the second round of the 2015 NHL Draft with the 50th overall pick.

“It’s been a quick turnaround, for sure,” the Canton, N.Y., native told reporters. “But it’s all something I’ve wanted to do. It’s something I love doing, and I’m just excited to get everything started, excited to help the team out however I can.”

Greenway logged 10:01 minutes of ice time in Minnesota’s 2-1 overtime loss to Nashville, including 50 seconds of power play time and 12 seconds on the penalty kill. He didn’t mange a shot on goal.

He got a taste of the difference between college hockey and the NHL courtesy of a first-period hit from rugged Predators left wing Scott Hartnell.

Greenway, 21, finished his three years at BU with 28 goals and 64 assists in 112 games. He had 13 goals and 22 assists in 36 games in 2017-18.

In international competition, Greenway scored one goal in five Winter Olympics games; tallied 3 goals and 5 assists on the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2016-17 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Toronto and Montreal; and notched a goal and 6 assists at the 2014-15 IIHF Under-18 World Junior Championship to help power the U.S. to gold in that tournament.

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Jordan Greenway becomes first African-American on U.S. Olympic hockey team

01 Monday Jan 2018

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Boston University forward Jordan Greenway was named to the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team that will compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea next month.

Boston University forward Jordan Greenway is PyeongChang-bound (Photo/Andre Ringuette/HHOF-IIHF Images).

Greenway, 20, is the first African-American player ever chosen for the U.S. team.

“Even starting in 1960 when we had the amateurs playing in the Olympics and we were able to get the gold medal there, and then most recently in 1980, just being able to build on that legacy is an unbelievable feeling for me, and I’m happy I’m able to get this opportunity now,” Greenway told the Sporting News. “I’ve been able to accomplish a lot of good things and just allowing a lot of African-American kids who are younger than me who see kind of what I’m doing, I hope that can be an inspiration for them.

Greenway was one of four collegiate players selected for a U.S. team that largely consists of players who are starring in overseas leagues, a career minor-leaguer, and a 38-year-old  recently-retired Stanley Cup champion.

The U.S. team opted for this mix after the NHL announced that it wouldn’t send its players to the Winter Games for the first time in 30 years.

Greenway’s selection wasn’t a surprise: He had participated in Team USA pre-Olympic media events.

A junior at Boston University and a 2015 Minnesota Wild second-round draft pick, Greenway earned a spot on the Olympic roster with a breakout performance at the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Toronto and Montreal.

The 6-foot-6, 227-pound forward from Canton, New York, was a man among boys for the gold medal-winning U.S. team, combining an intimidating physicality with soft scoring hands.

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He had 3 goals and 5 assists in seven games at the World Juniors. He’s tallied 7 goals and 10 assists in 19 NCAA Division I hockey games this season.

Boston University Head Coach David Quinn has said that if Greenway wasn’t a hockey player he would be “a five-star tight end for Alabama and Notre Dame” because of his size.

Jordan Greenway, right, was a towering figure for the U.S. at the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship. USA Hockey is hoping for a repeat performance from him at the 2018 Winter Olympics (Photo/ Matt Zambonin/HHOF-IIHF Images).

U.S. Olympic men’s hockey Head Coach Tony Granato hopes Greenway’s size and skill will give opposing players fits in PyeongChang just as it did in Montreal and Toronto in 2017.

Here’s the entire U.S. roster. The team will be captained by right wing Brian Gionta, who notched 289 goals and 299 assists in 1,006 games for the New Jersey Devils, Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres from 2001-02 to his retirement after the 2016-17 season. He won a Stanley Cup with the Devils in the 2002-03 season.

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USA Hockey’s K’Andre Miller proves that looks, and stereotypes, can be deceiving

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

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K’Andre Miller remembers getting occasional odd looks or sometimes racially-coded responses after telling people what sport he plays.

K’Andre Miller, defense, USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program (Photo/Rena Laverty/USA Hockey).

“They didn’t see me as ‘the hockey player type.’ I was a long, skinny kid. I looked like a basketball player,” Miller told me recently. “Every time I would go out to eat, people would be, like, ‘Oh, you play basketball, don’t you?’ I’d be like, ‘No, I actually play hockey.’ And they’d be like ‘Wow, you don’t really look like that type of player.'”

As a defenseman on USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program Under-18 squad, Miller is proving them wrong.

The 6-foot-3, 191-pound 17-year-old from Minnetonka, Minnesota, is blossoming into a blue-chip blue-liner for the NTDP after making the switch from forward only two season ago.

Miller, who’ll turn 18 on Jan. 21, will be eligible for the 2018 National Hockey League Draft in June in Dallas. NHL Central Scouting gave Miller a “B” rating last month, meaning he’s projected to be second or third-round pick.

He played in the 2017 CCM/USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game in Buffalo, New York, in September. He’s tallied 2 assists in the U.S. National Under-18 team’s first 13 games of the 2017-18 season and notched 3 goals and 14 assists in 54 games for the Under-17 squad in 2016-17.

NHL Central Scouting projects defenseman K’Andre Miller to be a second or third-round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft in June (Photo/Rena Laverty/USA Hockey).

Headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan, the national team development program competes internationally, and also plays U.S. colleges and teams in the United States Hockey League, the nation’s only Tier 1 junior league.

While Miller has his sights set on playing in the NHL, he’ll attend the University of Wisconsin first.

He’s committed to play for the Badgers and Head Coach Tony Granto – who’s also the bench boss for the 2018 U.S. Winter Olympics men’s hockey team in South Korea in February – starting in the 2018-19 season.

If  Miller achieves his NHL goal, give an assist to to Minnesota Wild team captain Mikko Koivu.

“For my ninth birthday, I went down to Dallas to watch the Stars play the Wild,” Miller told me. “We went down to the locker room after the game and Mikko came up to me, shook my hand, said happy birthday, and asked when the next time I would be at a home game in Minnesota because he was going to try to get me a stick.

K’Andre Miller looks forward to playing in the NHL someday. But first he’ll play for the University of Wisconsin, starting next season (Photo/Rena Laverty/USA Hockey).

“I went back to the rink in Minnesota about two months later and he picked me out in the stands, he had the trainer come up with a stick and hand it right to me,” Miller added. “That was probably the coolest experience I think I’ve ever had with an NHL player.”

That experience helped seal the deal for Miller wanting to become a professional hockey player. But Miller’s uncle, Ken, should also get an assist for exposing his nephew to the game at an early age.

“He would take me out on the rink when I was little,” Miller recalled. “I started skating when I was two and he kind of helped me, put a stick in my hand, kind of taught me the game.

“I’d go over to his house whenever I wanted to and just watch games with him,” he added. “One of the cool things I still like about my Uncle Ken is whenever I usually go over there, we play roller hockey in his backyard.”

K’Andre Miller, right, is all smiles playing for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program (Photo/Rena Laverty/USA Hockey).

Minnesota has produced several talented black hockey players, including Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, forwards Kyle Okposo of the Buffalo Sabres and J.T. Brown of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Keegan Iverson, a 2014 NHL draftee who plays for the Ontario Reign, the Los Angeles Kings’ American Hockey League farm team.

But that hasn’t stopped some folks from wondering what the tall black kid from Minnetonka is doing on the ice with a stick in his hand. Miller takes pride in showing doubters that he’s built for the NHL.

“It’s always been my motivation to prove to people that no matter what your skin color is, what you look like in general, you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it,” he said. “When I see people of color in my community in Minnetonka and Hopkins trying to play hockey, I always go up to them whenever I can and straight-up tell them ‘Don’t listen to what anybody says. Play whatever you want to play, if it’s hockey, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, whatever you want to do. Just do it.'”

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

 

Richard Park seeks Winter Olympics ‘Miracle’ for South Korea’s hockey team

31 Tuesday Oct 2017

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Richard Park won’t say that South Korea’s men’s ice hockey team will win a medal in its Olympic debut at the 2018 Winter Games in February. But….

South Korean men’s hockey team Assistant Coach Richard Park. Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn/
Minnesota Wild

“It’s a short tournament and anything can happen,” Park told me recently. “You use the word ‘miracle,’ you think of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, the ‘Miracle on Ice.’ It’s happen before. If we can come close to matching that, or even duplicating it, it will be an amazing accomplishment.”

It’s been an amazing hockey journey for Park, a retired forward who played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota Wild, Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders.

The journey has come full circle for Park. He’s returned to the country of his birth to serve as assistant director and assistant coach for a South Korean men’s team that will compete in its first Winter Olympics when it takes to the Gangneung Hockey Center ice in PyeongChang, South Korea, on Feb. 15 to face the Czech Republic.

Park discusses South Korea’s upcoming Olympic experience, the rise of hockey in Asia, and reflects on his NHL career in the latest Color of Hockey podcast.

While Park won’t predict a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal for South Korea, he says that the 2018 Olympic hockey tournament will be dramatically different from previous Winter Games because the NHL isn’t releasing its players to compete for their countries.

With no Sidney Crosby for Canada, no Patrick Kane, for the United States, no Alex Ovechkin for Russia, and no Henrik Lundqvist  for Sweden, the tournament could be ripe for a surprise.

“It doesn’t directly have an affect on us like other countries,” Park said of the absence of NHL superstars. “But it does have an affect on us because it changes the playing field for us. We’ll see. Hopefully we can turn that into an advantage.”

South Korea has already surprised the hockey world. Under Head Coach Jim Paek and Park, the team finished second at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship Division I Group A tournament in Kiev in April.

Richard Park was a forward for the Minnesota Wild for three seasons and is currently a development coach for the team (Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn/Minnesota Wild).

The showing earned South Korea a promotion to the IIHF’s top division, joining the ranks of the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other hockey powers.

“Korea has never ever been close, let alone in the top division in the world of hockey,”  Park said. “It’s huge. It’s big, it’s never been done before.”

Park’s team now faces the daunting task of trying to win in Group A at the Olympic hockey tournament, a bracket that includes powerhouses Canada and the Czech Republic and always pesky Switzerland.

“It’s really the first time we’ll be playing at that caliber,” Park told me. “We’ll do okay.”

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RV rides in L.A. help drive Jason Robertson to 2nd-round pick in NHL Draft

24 Saturday Jun 2017

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CHICAGO – Jason Robertson’s thoughts went to the family RV when the Dallas Stars called his name and made him the 39th overall pick in the 2017 National Hockey League Draft on Saturday.

Dallas Stars draftee Jason Robertson.

Robertson was a California kid – he and his brothers began seriously playing the game because his father and grandfather were Los Angeles Kings season ticket holders.

With L.A. being L.A. with its traffic jams and with three kids with different practice times, the Robertsons used an recreational vehicle that served as a mobile command center that ferried kids to practice, served as a classroom, and a locker room on wheels.

“We had a big RV,” said Robertson, who is of Filipino heritage. “The rink in Los Angeles, with traffic, was probably an hour and a half away. My little brother and older brother play hockey so their practices would be at 3 and mine would be at 6. We’d all go at 3 o’clock and wait for my practice at 6.”

Jason Roberston grew up playing hockey in Los Angeles, Detroit, Tonroto and Kingston, Ont. He hopes Dallas is the next stop (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

The journeys in the RV, and playing  youth hockey in Detroit and Toronto, paid off with Robertson being taken in the second round by the Stars after his stellar season for the Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League.

The 6-foot-2 left wing for the OHL’s Kingston Frontenacs led the team in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 39 assists in 68 regular season games and tallied 5 goals and 13 assists in 11 OHL playoff games.

The NHL’s Central Scouting ranked Robertson as the 14th-best North American skater eligible for the draft. Scouts predicted that he could go anywhere from a late first-round pick to anywhere in the second or third rounds.

Hockey people gush over his scoring hands and hockey intelligence, but have concerns about his skating ability. They note that it takes too many strides for him to reach top speed.

“It’s something that people say – everyone needs to work on something,” he said. “Obviously, for me, I need to work on that. It’s an opportunity to get better.”

If Robertson reaches the NHL, he would join Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba as the latest players of Filipino descent to play in the league.

“It’s nice to see the diversity,” said Robertson, whose mother was born in the Philippines. “It was nice to see the guys picked ahead of me that have different ethnicites. It’s really special to have more guys coming in.”

And Robertson and Dumba could someday be joined by Robertson’s younger brother, Nick, a forward chosen by the OHL’s Peterborough Petes in  the 2017 OHL Priority Selection draft April. He signed a contract to play with the Petes in May.

Jason said his younger brother is a good player,  but he makes no bones about who is the better Robertson on the ice.

“I normally dressed my little brother up as a goalie and ripped five-hole on him,” the older Robertson said with a laugh.

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Asia rising in hockey ahead of Winter Olympics in South Korea and China

14 Sunday May 2017

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Asia rising?

In ice hockey, it sure seems like it.

South Korea Assistant Hockey Coach Richard Park (Photo/Minnesota Wild/Bruce Kluckhohn).

From the winning exploits of  teams from the continent in recent international tournaments to players of Asian heritage poised to be picked in the 2017 National Hockey League Draft, to skaters of Chinese and Malaysian descent who were selected in previous drafts, hockey appears to be gaining ground in Asian nations and Asian communities in North America.

The interest could grow even more once pucks are dropped at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and  the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, China.

“I think it’s a testament to the growth of the game,” Richard Park, a retired NHL forward and an assistant coach for the South Korean national team that will compete in the 2018 Winter Games, told me recently. “I think it’s very welcoming,  I think it’s very refreshing. I think it’s a testament again to all these cultures that the game is reaching.”

Park, who’s also a development coach for the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and retired NHL defenseman Jim Paek, the South Korean men’s national team’s head coach, are helping guide the country of their ancestry up the world hockey ladder.

They coached South Korea to a dramatic 2-1 shootout win against Ukraine in April, earning a second-place finish at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship Division I Group A tournament in Kiev.

The victory bumped South Korea up to the IIHF’s top division next year, joining the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and other hockey powers.

“Korea has never ever been close, let alone in the top division in the world of hockey,” said Park, who played 738 NHL games for the Wild, Pittsburgh Penguins, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Philadelphia Flyers, Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders. “It’s huge. It’s big, it’s never been done before. But in saying that, what it leads to in the future is kind of up to not only the media, but the young kids, and the really young next generation in Korea.”

In North America, a next generation of players of Asian descent is already making its presence known. Just take a glimpse at NHL Central Scouting’s player rankings for the June 23-24 draft at Chicago’s United Center.

Owen Sound Attack center Nick Suzuki is ranked as the 10th-best North American skater. The 5-foot-10 native of London, Ontario, was Owen Sound’s second-leading scorer last season with 45 goals and 51 assists in 65 games.

Owen Sound Attack forward Nick Suzuki hopes he’ll be chosen in the 2017 NHL Draft in June (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images)

His younger brother, forward Ryan Suzuki, was the first player chosen in the 2017 Ontario Hockey League Priority Selection Draft in April, plucked by the Barrie Colts.

Kailer Yamamoto is hoping to hear his named called at next month’s NHL draft.  The 5-foot-8 right wing for the Western Hockey League’s Spokane Chiefs is ranked as the 17th-best North American skater by Central Scouting.

Spokane Chiefs’ Kailer Yamamoto is the 17th-ranked North American skater by NHL Central Scouting (Photo/Larry Brunt/Spokane Chiefs).

A Spokane native of Japanese and Hawaiian heritage, Yamamoto led the Chiefs in scoring in 2016-17 with 42 goals and 47 assists in 65 games. His older brother, Keanu, was Spokane’s fourth-leading scorer last season with 26 goals and 43 assists in 72 games.

USA hockey National Team Development Program defenseman Tyler Inamoto (Photo/Rena Laverty/USA Hockey).

Whether he’s drafted or not, defenseman Tyler Inamoto knows where he’s headed this fall. The 6-foot-2 blue-liner for the USA Hockey National Development Team, ranked the 68th-best North American skater, will be skating for the University of Wisconsin Badgers in 2017-18.

“He’s big, strong and has a mean streak,” said Badgers Head Coach Tony Granato, who enjoyed a long and prolific NHL career, “He’ll be a physical impact player right away next year.”

If drafted, Inamoto, Yamamoto and Suzuki, hope to join a small but growing list of players of Asian heritage who are on NHL career paths.

Center Cliff Pu, Buffalo Sabres’ third-round draft pick in 2016.

Last year, the Buffalo Sabres took London Knights forward Cliff Pu in the third round with the 69th overall pick in the NHL Draft. Pu led the Knights in scoring in 2016-17 with 35 goals and 51 assists in 63 regular season games.

The Florida Panthers chose Peterborough Petes forward Jonathan Ang in the fourth round with the 94th overall pick of the 2016 draft.

Ang, the first player of Malaysian heritage to be drafted by an NHL team, was the Petes’ third-leading scorer in 2016-17 with 27 goals and 32 assists in 69 games.

Andong Song also made history when the New York Islanders selected the Beijing-born defenseman in the sixth round with the 172nd pick of the 2015 draft.

Song, who has committed to play hockey for Cornell University in 2018-19, will likely be a key member of China’s hockey team for the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Beijing.

George Chiang’s voice fills with pride and hope when he talks about players like Pu and

Forward Jonathan Ang, the Florida Panthers’ 4th-round pick in, 2016.

Ang.

“Cliff Pu has good size and plays for the London Knights, which is great,” Chiang told me recently. “Jonathan Ang just seems to become a better player every year in the Ontario Hockey League. It’s kind of cool seeing those guys.

Chiang is a Canadian hockey dad. His 14-year-old son, Lee Chiang,  played for Lac St. Louis Lions Nord bantam AAA team in Quebec last season and will likely be selected by an OHL team in the league’s priority draft next year.

The elder Chiang dreamed of pursuing a pro career when he was younger. But that dream was stymied by his parents, immigrants to Canada from Taiwan, who initially forbade him from playing hockey.

Lee Chiang playing for the North York Rangers in 2015.

” I came from immigrant parents and they didn’t understand hockey. I begged every year since I was five,” Chiang, 47, told me recently.  “They put me in baseball because they understood baseball. It’s the national sport of Taiwan. Finally, when I was 12 they let me play on a (hockey) team.”

Unlike his folks, Chiang didn’t hesitate in allowing his son to lace up the skates and grab a stick.

“My plan was to also put him in baseball, but he ended up hating baseball and he loved hockey,” George Chiang told me. “He’s a hockey player.”

 

 

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Ducks’ Vermette suspended 10 games for slashing NHL linesman Shandor Alphonso

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

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The National Hockey League suspended Anaheim Ducks center Antoine Vermette 10 games Thursday for his two-handed slash of rookie linesman Shandor Alphonso during the Ducks’ Tuesday night’s game against the Minnesota Wild.

In addition to the 10-game ban, Vermette will forfeit $97,222.22 of his salary, based on his annual salary per NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Linesman Shandor Alphonso (Photo/Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)

Linesman Shandor Alphonso (Photo/Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)

With 12:30 to go in the third period, Alphonso dropped the puck Tuesday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a neutral zone faceoff between Vermette and the Wild’s Mikko Koivu.

What happened next has the hockey world shaking its head.

Koivu won the draw and Vermette stayed still, then turned to Alphonso and gave him a two-handed slash across the  back of his right leg. Vermette, 34, a veteran of 968 NHL games, was given a 10-minute misconduct for official abuse and ejected from the game.

Alphonso wasn’t injured. The Orange County Register reported that Vermette had been miffed that the puck was dropped when he wasn’t set for the draw.

Alphonso was promoted to full-time status this season, ending a two-year apprenticeship that had him officiating 40 NHL games and 40 American Hockey League contest. He joined veteran Jay Sharrers, his role model, and the NHL’s only other black on-ice official.

Anaheim Ducks forward Antoine Vermette.

Anaheim Ducks forward Antoine Vermette.

The league had to decide whether Vermette would receive a 20-game suspension for intentionally trying to injure an official or the 10-game ban for the use of physical force against an official without intent to injure.

Ducks Head Coach Randy Carlyle told The Register that Vermette’s action “wasn’t really a vicious or any type of malice thing.”

“He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody,’ the coach told the newspaper. “It was more of a tap to blow-the-whistle-type of thing. Because usually what happens, if they do drop tje puck unfairly, the linesman or the referee will blow the whistle and reset it.”

 

The Color of Hockey’s Lew Serviss wrote this article.