DALLAS – The player with the movie star name heard it called in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft.
Defenseman Jett Woo of the Moose Jaw Warriors was taken with the 34th overall pick of the draft Saturday at Dallas’ American Airlines Center.
Named after action movie star Jett Li, Woo became the second player of Chinese descent to be drafted by an NHL team. Defenseman Andong Song became the first Chinese-born player drafted when the New York Islanders took him in the sixth round in 2015.
“It’s cool,” Woo said. “To have my heritage with me in this process is something that’s really cool to me. And to grow up so involved in my heritage my family is something really special.”
Woo, a 17-year-old from Winnipeg, was ranked the 28th-best North American skater, down from 20th at mid-term. He tallied 9 goals and 16 assists and 2 goals and 1 assist in 14 WHL playoff games. He also contributed a goal and an assist for Team Canada at the 2018 International Ice Hockey Federation U18 World Junior Championship.
“Yeah, it was difficult, and I’m not afraid to say that,” Woo said of the abdominal and shoulder injuries that plagued him last season “To go into playoffs and play my best there was something I was pretty proud of. It was such a great team and organization and city behind me. It wasn’t such a tough transition to go back on the ice with them behind me.”
Woo also said he had a strong family behind him. His father, Larry Woo, played for Victoria Cougars and Swift Current Broncos in the WHL and then for the University of Manitoba.
“The whole family, they dedicated so much and sacrificed so much for me and my brother and my sisters as well,” Woo said. “So, to have him and my mom always on my side and take those long road trips. You drive me to the rink or back. To go through the process and, you know, make me come here.”
In Woo, the Canucks are getting a hard-hitting right-hand defenseman.
“I like to make sure that the defensive side of the puck is taken care of,” he said, “Whether that be…winning puck battles, playing hard for the puck, you know, being physically in the right moments, or being able to have a different angle on the puck. All of those things…I put first and then my offense will come after that.”
Erica L. Ayala contributed to this report. Follow her @elindsay08.
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The proud papa of three black professional hockey players thought he was finished writing his first book, “How We Did It, The Subban Family Plan For Success In Hockey, School And Life.”
The Montreal Canadiens swapped All-Star defenseman P.K. Subban to the Nashville Predators straight-up for All-Star defenseman Shea Weber.
The move shocked the hockey world, helped guide the Predators to their first StanleyCup Final appearance, and sent Karl Subban scrambling to his computer to write another chapter for his book.
“Yeah, I had to write it,” Karl told me. “It was unbelievable. It was an unbelievable run to the Stanley Cup Final. I’ve never been through that before. It took me a long time to believe that we were there.”
The elder Subban talks about his book, The Trade, the Predators’ Stanley Cup run, racism, and what it’s like raising three very talented hockey players in the first episode of the Color of Hockey podcast.
Our new podcast, like this blog, will tell the story of the history and growing impact of people of color in ice hockey at all levels and all aspects of the game – on the ice, off the ice, behind the bench, in the broadcast booth, and in the front office, wherever.
And what better lead-off guest than Karl, father of Pernell Karl (P.K.); Malcolm, a goaltender and Boston Bruins 2012 first round draft pick who was waived by the B’s this week and claimed by the expansion Vegas Golden Knights; and Jordan, a 2013 VancouverCanucks fourth-round draft pick who’s a defenseman for the Utica Comets, the Canucks’ American Hockey League franchise in Upstate New York.
P.K. tallied 10 goals and 30 assists in 66 games in his first season in Nashville. He had 2 goals and 10 assists in 22 playoff games.
Malcolm compiled an 11-14-5 record in 32 games for the Providence Bruins and posted a 2.41 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. He was winless in the AHL’s Calder Cup Playoffs with a 2.12 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage.
Jordan notched 16 goals and 20 assists in 65 regular season games last season for Utica. He had 2 goals and an assist in four AHL playoff contests.
Providence Bruins goaltender Malcolm Subban looks to work his way to the NHL (Photo/Alan Sullivan).
True to its title, “How We Did It” gives insight to how Karl and Maria Subban guided their boys through various levels of hockey – from lacing on their first pair of skates skates to hearing their names called at National Hockey League drafts.
“The African proverb, I use it in the book, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,'” Karl told me. “It also takes a village to raise an NHLer…to grow their potential. Maria and I can’t stand there and say ‘Look at us, we did it all by ourselves.'”
At 5-foot-9, defenseman Jordan Subban is out to prove that he belongs with big brother P.K. in the NHL (Photo/Lindsay A. Mogul/Utica Comets).
But the book is also deals with immigration – Karl’s family moved to Canada from Jamaica and Maria’s from Montserrat – education, and the ugly realities of racism, an issue that P.K. first confronted when he was an 8 year old playing minor hockey in Toronto.
It’s a lesson that Karl, a semi-retired Toronto public school principal, was sadden that his son learned so early.
“He came out of the dressing room crying. He said a boy on the ice called him the N-word,” Karl writes in the book. “We said there was no need to cry because it was only a word. We probably said something about ‘sticks and stones.’ There weren’t too many kids playing who looked like P.K., but now someone had communicated it to him in a way he didn’t like.”
He’s endured racist taunts and attitudes as a pro, most notably during the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs when so-called Bruins unleasheda torrent of hateful emails and social media posts after he scored two goals, including the double-overtime winner.
When confronted with racist ugliness, Karl says P.K. follows a bit of advice that he gave him: Don’t let them win.
“I’ve told P.K. it’s vital to change the channel, because if you ruminate over it, you can’t free yourself from it,” the elder Subban writes. “It does take practice, though – and P.K. has had a lot of practice.”
Karl had to change the channel when the Canadiens traded P.K.. Montreal was Karl’s team ever since he was a boy growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, watching the Canadiens’ French broadcast on TV, and dreaming of being Habs goaltender Ken Dryden.
As an adult, he thought there was nothing like seeing a game in hockey-mad Montreal. Then came Nashville.
“I didn’t think there was anything better until I got to Nashville, and then I said ‘Wow!'” he told me. “It’s so different and a great experience. It’s the music there, the environment. After the game, the honky tonks, the bars, the food, I love country music. And then we went on that (Stanley Cup) run, and the city, which is alive anyway 24/7, it was taken to another level.”
But Karl still can’t quite get used to what’s becoming a tradition in Nashville: fans tossing catfish onto the BridgestoneArena ice.
“I just want to eat those catfish,” he told me. “There’s a restaurant where I go, they have this catfish thing and I love it. Like, I’m saying ‘please don’t throw them on the ice. Can you just give them to that restaurant I go to and have them prepare it the way they prepare it there.”
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Forward Jeremiah Addison and defenseman Jalen Chatfield, black co-captains of the Windsor Spitfires, together lifted the Memorial Cup after Windsor defeated the Erie Otters 4-3 Sunday to win the Canadian Hockey Leaguemajor junior championship.
Windsor Spitfires co-captains Jeremiah Addison, left, and Jalen Chatfield, right, accept Memorial Cup from CHL Commissioner David Branch ( Photo/ Aaron Bell/CHL Images).
The Spitfires, in the tournament because Windsor, Ontario, was the host city, overcame a 44-day layoff – they lost to the London Knights in the first round of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs – to beat OHL Erie.
“We’ve battled with the most adversity between injuries, suspensions, and all kinds of stuff,” Addison told The Windsor Star after the game. “We battled through all kinds of adversity.”
Windsor became the first host team to win the Cup since the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Shawinigan Cataractes did it in 2012 and the 10th since the tournament went to a round-robin format in 1972.
“We just focused on what we could do,” Chatfield told the Star. “Get bigger, stronger, and come together as a team. Building more chemistry around the (locker) room and we’ve done that.”
Addison and Chatfield were held scorelessin Sunday’s game, but the two overage players were pivotal to Spitfires’ championship drive. Addison, a Brampton, Ontario, native, scored 3 goals to power Windsor past the Otters 4-2 on May 24 to earn a spot in the final.
Windsor Spitfires co-captains Jalen Chatfield, foreground, and Jeremiah Addison take the Memorial Cup for a skate after winning CHL championship (Photo/Aaron Bell/CHL Images).
Chatfield contributed by playing near shutdown defense against snipers like QMJHL Saint John Sea DogsMathieu Joseph and Bokondji Imamaand Erie’s Alex DeBrincat, Taylor Raddysh and Dylan Strome.
Sunday’s game was the last major junior contest for Addison and Chatfield. Addison, 20, a 2015 seventh-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens, will look to land a playing spot in the organization in 2017-18. Chatfield, 21-year old native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, signed a three-year entry level contract with the Vancouver Canucks in March.
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Tough guy forward Donald Brashear won a lot of fights during his 17-season National Hockey League career.
Wednesday night, Brashear struck another victorious blow – landing a $500,000 deal for his fledgling Brash87 low-cost hockey stick company with the denizens of CBC’s popular “Dragons’ Den,” Canada’s version of CNBC’s “Shark Tank.”
The former NHL enforcer who let his fists do the talking to the tune of 2,634 career penalty minutes persuaded three Dragons – Jim Treliving, Michael Wekerle, and ManjitMinhas – to do a deal in which they provide $500,000 to help him boost the inventory of his China-manufactured sticks in return for a 40 percent economic interest and 50 percent voting interest in Brash87.
“I’m still working on them trying to close that deal,” Brashear told me Wednesday night. “Bottom line, if you’re starting a business and you have people that know the most and have a lot of money and want to invest in your company, it’s a good sign. I hope it gives a push, marketing-wise.”
Treliving, chairman and owner of Boston Pizza International, Inc., has hockey connections. He’s director of the Hockey Canada Foundation. His son, Brad Treliving, is general manager of the NHL’s Calgary Flames.
Brashear went on the show in search of funding and partners for the company he founded after he was appalled by the prospect of paying $300 for a twig after he retired from the NHL six years ago.
Ex-NHL enforcer Donald Brashear, left, with partner Jibin Joseph show off Brash87 hockey sticks to the cast of CBC’s “Dragons’ Den.”
He was a kept man hockey equipment-wise during his career with the Vancouver Canucks, Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, and New York Rangers and never realized how much money hockey parents and beer league players shelled out for sticks.
So he started Brash87, which sells Brashear-designed, professional-caliber, carbon fiber sticks at a price that won’t send hockey parents and recreational adult players into sticker shock.
The sticks range between $129 (CAN) and $179 (CAN), roughly between $94 and $130 in U.S. currency. Brashear says his mostly mail order business is booming, perhaps faster than he anticipated.
Donald Brashear, left, played for five NHL teams, including the Philadelphia Flyers (Photo/Bruce Bennett/Getty Images via Philadelphia Flyers).
“At first when I started, I was going so fast that I didn’t have enough inventory,” he told me. “With more inventory, I can get more sticks at a lower price, which will be even better for me. The problem was getting investment cash to get the larger inventory.”
He currently has an inventory of 3,000 sticks. He envisions growing that to 10,000 to 20,000 sticks so he can begin selling them in big stores. After surviving the “Dragons’ Den,” he may get his wish.
After 17 National Hockey League seasons playing for five teams that provided him with every piece of equipment he needed, tough guy forward Donald Brashear had an epiphany – and a case of sticker shock – when he had to buy a hockey stick.
“I was retired for five years, so when I ran out of sticks and I went to buy one at a store, I thought the sticks were so expensive,” Brashear told me recently. “Even though I have money, it didn’t make sense for me to pay 300 bucks for a stick just to play in the beer league.”
Donald Brashear launched a quest to make an affordable hockey stick.
That breath-gasping experience launched Brashear on a mission to manufacture and sell professional-caliber, carbon fiber, high-performance hockey sticks at an affordable price.
The result was Brash 87, an upstart business that sells Brashear-designed sticks for players of all levels. He’s priced them between $129 (CAN) and $189 (CAN) – roughly $103 to $151 (USD) – about half the cost of name-brand sticks.
Brashear is the latest individual or company to venture into the lucrative and ultra-competitive hockey stick business. In 2013, STX, a Baltimore-based lacrosse, field hockey, and golf equipment maker branched off into ice hockey sticks.
In 2000, golf club shaft-maker True got into the hockey stick biz and has sold more than two million twigs since. But big-name hockey companies continue to be the big dogs. Bauer, for example, has an estimated 54 percent of the hockey equipment market – which includes sticks.
Brashear says he’s not out to conquer the hockey stick-making world. He just wants a small piece of the planet.
“It’s like you’re drinking Pepsi-Cola and then there’s a new company that shows up and says ‘Listen, I want to take one percent of that market,'” he told me. “If I can get one percent of what that company is making, that’s a lot of money.”
Donald Brashear played for five NHL teams, including the Philadelphia Flyers (Photo/ Mitchell Layton/Getty Images via Philadelphia Flyers)
Brashear began his quest slowly. First, he searched for a reliable manufacturer in China who could make sticks to his specifications. After personally putting prototype sticks through their paces, he began selling the sticks around hometown Quebec City and at a Toronto-area Canadian Tire store.
“In six months, eight months, I sold like close to 3,000 sticks with no marketing, no advertising, no nothing. Only word of mouth,” he told me. “I hit two markets: the parents who don’t want to pay for a stick that’s too expensive and the beer league player who wants a high-performance stick.”
He’s become a traveling salesman of sorts, lugging a few Brash 87’s with him to rinks around Quebec City where he plays hockey five times a week.
“I bring my sticks, other players take them and they realize ‘That’s a nice stick, it’s light,'” Brashear said. “I say ‘Why don’t you try it?’ They try it and they adopt it.”
Now Brashear is looking to expand. He pitched his wares earlier this month before the panelists of CBC’s “Dragons’ Den,” Canada’s equivalent to CNBC’s popular “Shark Tank” business reality television show. The episode should air in the upcoming season.
Donald Brashear recently pitched his less-expensive Brash 87 hockey sticks to CBC’s “Dragons’ Den,” Canada’s version of CNBC’s “Shark Tank.” (Photo/CBC)
“The ultimate goal is to build a high-performance stick to help people save money on sticks,” he said. “It’s not something I’m doing to become a millionaire. It’s something I’m doing where I’m helping people and helping me at the same time.”
Some fans might think Brashear’s desire to sell hockey sticks a bit odd. After all, he was a player known more for his fists than his scoring touch. In 1,025 NHL games, Brashear tallied 85 goals, 120 assists and a whopping 2,634 penalty minutes – most of them accumulated five minutes at a time as one of the league’s fiercest and most-feared fighters.
The website dropyourgloves.com calculates that Brashear had 390 fights during his hockey career – 277 of them while playing for the Montreal Canadiens, VancouverCanucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, and New York Rangers. He spent enough time in the sin bin that he’s ranked 15th all-time in penalty minutes among NHL players.
“A lot of people know me as a guy that was fighting but knew how to play the game, that could score a goal once in a while, and could make some passes,” said Brashear, an Indiana-born French-Canadian. “If you look at my stats, I fight but I was also picking up points.”
Brashear had the ability to light the lamp. He was second in scoring on the Fredericton Canadiens -Montreal’s American Hockey League farm team in 1993-94 – with 38 goals and 28 assists while amassing 250 penalty minutes. He had an NHL career-high 28 points – 9 goals, 19 assists – for the Canucks in 2000-2001.
One of his most satisfying seasons was when he scored 25 points – 8 goals, 17 assists – with the Flyers in 2002-03 as a fourth-line player with right wing Sami Kapanen and center Keith Primeau.
“That was a fun year, I really liked it,” Brashear told me. “I always wanted to be in different situations, and I was used in different situations. I wanted to become a better player.”
He added: “I shot a lot of pucks and I know a lot about hockey sticks. I would watch (Capitals forward Alex) Ovechkin make a move and I would try to make the same one. It would take me two years before I would be able to, but in the end I would get it.”
But toughness remains Brashear’s calling card. When his young players were being pushed around in the Swedish Hockey League last season, Modo Assistant General Manager Peter Forsberg telephoned his then 42-year-old former Flyers teammate Brashear and asked him to hop a plane and suit up.
“I said ‘Peter, I’ve been retired for five years. Yeah, I play a lot of hockey, but I’m not in game shape like going 100 miles an hour like these kids now in Europe,'” Brashear recalled. “I said ‘We’re not allowed to fight.’ He said ‘No, but your presence there is going to make a big difference.'”
Brashear’s Modo stat line: 12 regular season games, no points and six penalty minutes. He had a goal, no assists, and two penalty minutes in four playoff games. He was a fan favorite during his nearly three-month stint in Sweden.
“I really enjoyed it…I kind of wish right after my career I had the chance to go play there to get better at the game there,” he said. “There’s so much skating, passing the puck. It’s not so much physical.”
The publication is named The Vancouver Sun but the caption with the photo was hardly enlightening.
Defenseman Jordan Subban, the Vancouver Canucks’ fourth-round draft pick in 2013, scored his first-ever NHL goal in Tuesday night’s preseason game against the San Jose Sharks. After scoring the goal, a happy Subban celebrated with his teammates, a moment captured in a photograph published in The Sun’s online edition.
The picture was fine. The caption that accompanied it, not so much. It said: Vancouver Canucks celebrate goal by Jordan Subban (dark guy in the middle) against San Jose Sharks in NHL pre-season game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C. on September 23, 2014.
“Dark guy in the middle.” Really? Glad the cutline cleared up that confusion.
Jordan Subban
To add some bones to the caption’s obsession with Subban’s flesh: Jordan Subban was the 115th player selected in the 2013 draft. He’s the youngest brother of Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban and BostonBruins goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban.
Jordan was a top defenseman last season for the Bellville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League. The diminutive 19-year-old notched 12 goals and 30 assists for the Bulls in 65 games. Big brother P.K., who won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman in 2013, on several occasions has said Jordan is a cerebral blue-liner who can teach him a thing or two about playing defense.
Last night we ran a photo caption that should never have been written, let alone run online. We apologize to @jordansubban. (1/2)
The Sun and Vancouver’s Province newspaper apologized for the insensitive caption, but it’s still the latest racially clumsy episode before the first puck drops on the NHL’s 2014-15 season. First EA Sports inexplicably depicts St. Louis Blues tough guy Ryan Reaves about 15 shades too dark in its NHL video game, now the crazy Subban caption.
Subban took the episode in stride.
“I heard about that,” he told The Province Wednesday. “I had a chance to talk to a representative from the paper and it seemed like a pretty honest mistake. Am I worried about it? No. If people should be talking about something, it should be the way I played last night rather than that. Hopefully, it will just die down.
“It was just unfortunate. I don’t think there were any bad intentions. It is what it is and I’ve moved on and I’m sure everyone else will, too.”
Subban is on his way back to Bellville. The Canucks cut him and three other players and shipped them back to their major junior hockey teams.
The hockey gene kicked in for Cassandra Vilgrain on Feb. 21, 2002.
After watching the Canadian women’s hockey team beat the United States 3-2 for the Gold Medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City on television, Cassandra was overcome by a sensation that she never felt before – the sudden urge to play the game.
“I was figure skating and dancing and all that kind of stuff. I just went to my dad one day, me and my friend, after they won the gold and I said ‘I want to play hockey,'” Cassandra told me from the family home in Calgary, Alberta. “He was kind of taken aback and said ‘Oh, really? That’s great.'”
Dad is Claude Vilgrain, who played 89 National Hockey League games for the Vancouver Canucks, New Jersey Devils, and Philadelphia
Claude Vilgrain watches daughter, Cassandra, play hockey and reflects on his career.
Flyers, skated in eight North American and European hockey leagues, and played for Canada in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
From her 2002 hockey epiphany, to a newbie barely able to stick handle on ice, Cassandra is now a forward for the University of NewHampshire’s NCAA Division I women’s hockey team. She tallied 9 goals and 8 assists in 32 games for the Wildcats last season. She got to Durham, N.H., through good hockey genes and good coaching – both courtesy of Dad.
“My first year of hockey there was no coach and my dad was like ‘Oh, I might as well do it since I’m going to be there anyway,'” Cassandra recalled. “He was really good. He taught me everything I know.”
Claude admits he wasn’t so sure when he first saw his daughter play.
Cassandra Vilgrain wants to go from watching the Winter Olympics on TV to playing in one.
“I watched her first couple of practices and she could hardly move the puck,” he recalled. “A Thursday I wasn’t there I got a call from my wife, Janet, and she said ‘You should have seen her, she’s flying out there. She’s like Mario Lemieux, blah, blah, blah.’ I said ‘What are you talking about, she can hardly move.’ But Cassandra’s always been a quick skater, a quick learner. She was always the hardest-working player on the ice and still is.”
Having a dad who’s an ex-NHL player as a coach is a plus. Having three former NHLers as coaches is a bonus. Claude had a volunteer parent-coaching staff on Cassandra’s girls teams that included Ron Sutter, – a forward who played for 555 games for the Flyers, St. Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, Calgary Flames and other teams, and Kevin Haller, a defenseman who logged 642 games for the Flyers, Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres, Anaheim Mighty Ducks and others squads during his NHL career.
“I guess I didn’t realize how cool it actually was, all the experience I got to grasp from them, but I think it definitely helped my game,” Cassandra said. “The best part was, yes, they were parent coaches, but we weren’t their daughters when we were on the ice or on the bench. We were treated the same, professionally, and we learned the game well.”
UNH’s Cassandra Vilgrain has her dad’s game and number.
As a tribute to her father, Cassandra wears Number 19 at UNH, the same number Claude wore during his NHL career. It gives Claude that “Mini-Me” feeling when he watches Wildcats games online back home in Calgary.
“I see her go on the ice, Number 19, and she turns around and I can see ‘Vilgrain’ on the back, it’s like a ‘Little Claudie’ out there,” he said.
“With a ponytail,” Cassandra added.
“With a ponytail,” Claude chuckled.
Hairstyle aside, father and daughter say they see similarities in their games, which Cassandra credits to bloodlines and coaching.
“I’m like a playmaker and my dad was always a really good playmaker, passer, kind of a power forward, a force to be reckoned with, kind of hard to knock off the puck,” she said. “I think that’s what I see in my own game.”
While Claude revels in his daughter’s hockey accomplishments, he says he’s just now beginning to fully grasp the significance and impact of his hockey career. Though raised in Quebec, Claude Vilgrain is the only NHL player born in Haiti – Port-au-Prince in 1963. He became a high-scoring forward for the Laval Voisins of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the University of Moncton, and Canada’s national team in an era before NHL players participated in the Olympics.
Vilgrain played for the Devils, Flyers, and Canucks in his NHL career.
“One of the first times I realized the impact I had was when I was playing in Switzerland, I got invited to play in the Spangler Cup for Team Canada,” he recalled. “They invited a couple of college kids to play with us. One of those players was Jamal Mayers (who played for the Blues and Chicago Blackhawks before retiring last year), he was a young kid, about 20 then. We were fixing our sticks before the first practice and he came to me and said ‘Hey, Claude, you’re our idol. My friend and I, we were watching you every game when we were playing in the states and it’s an honor playing with you.’ It never dawned on me that there might be some kids watching me. I was a little oblivious to the whole thing.”
By the time Claude made his debut with the Canucks in 1987-88, fellow black players Willie O’Ree, Mike Marson, Bill Riley, Tony McKegney, Grant Fuhr, Val James and Ray Neufeld had preceded him in the NHL. The trail they blazed was still a bumpy one for Claude. By the time he ended his NHL career with the Flyers in 1993-94, Claude totaled 21 goals, 32 assists and 78 penalty minutes in 89 games.
“When I played it wasn’t that easy. I’m not going to say I had a tough time, especially after talking to Willie O’Ree. I’m never going to complain,” he told me. “But I know every time I stepped on the ice, the eyes were turned towards me and they were wondering ‘Is this a black kid?’ It was even worse in Europe, especially when I was on the national team. We would play in places like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. Every time I stepped on the ice, the looks, the cameras, the interviews. They couldn’t believe there were black hockey players.”
Claude said it thrills him to see the growing number of players of color in the NHL today, especially players like Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds who have starring roles on their teams.
“You’re seeing more kids of color choosing the hockey path.” Claude said. “In Europe, I see Swedish black kids on my ex-team in Switzerland. I check the web sites of different teams in the German league where I played and I see black kids playing, the same thing in junior hockey.”
Cassandra wants to follow in father Claude’s skates and play for Canada.
As for Cassandra’s hockey path, both father and daughter hope she’ll follow in the old man’s skates and play for Canada in the Winter Olympics. Cassandra’s still jazzed about 2002 – and about the Gold Medal Canada’s women won at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi – and craves the Olympic experience.
She’s building the credentials: she was assistant captain for Team Alberta at the 2012 Canadian Nationals Under-18 competition and was a member of the 2011 Team Alberta squad. But she’s yet to receive an invitation to Hockey Canada’s women’s juniors or Olympics prospects camps.
“I wouldn’t say that I was overlooked, but I feel like I could have made an impact in those (Hockey Canada) programs already,” Cassandra said. “I’m hoping to make the Under-22 program and then drive for the Olympics.”
Cassandra’s hoping to make an impression at UNH and with Hockey Canada.
Claude said “It’s a little surprising that she never got invited for the U-18 type of thing” but added that “As a former national team member, I won’t mention anything. It’s up to her to find a way. She just has to work harder and make them notice her.”
Cassandra says she’s up for the challenge.
“I just always tell myself I’m going to give them no excuse not to invite me,” she said. “I’m going to play my hardest, do the best I can, and hopefully they see something in me and invite me next year or the year after.”
Karl Subban remembers the days when he would take his young son, Pernell Karl, ice skating and look around the rink to see if there was anybody else there that looked like them.
“In those days if you saw a black parent or a black person in the arena you would look twice,” he told me recently. “And now you don’t have to look twice anymore, things have changed a lot. Every time I walk into an arena you see minority children and minority parents.”
Things are indeed changing at rinks across North America and around the world, and Karl Subban’s family is a major force helping to facilitate that
P.K. Subban, from skating at age two to millions of dollars as restricted free agent.
change. Young Pernell Karl simply goes by P.K. now and he’s grown into a Norris Trophy-winning, slick-skating superstar defenseman for the Montreal Canadiens.
Brother Malcolm is in the middle, a 2012 Boston Bruins first round draft pick who played his first year of pro hockey last season for the Providence Bruins, Boston’s American Hockey League farm team. Youngest brother Jordan is a defenseman and 2013 Vancouver Canucks fourth-round draft pick, who skated last season for the Ontario Hockey League’s Bellville Bulls – the major junior team that his older brothers played for.
Karl Subban can’t hide a patriarch’s pride that his sons are reaching hockey’s upper echelon. But then, that’s always been the plan.
“We had the dream for these boys to play hockey, not just house league, but at a high level,” the elder Subban said of he and his wife, Maria. “The hardest part is to make it their dream and make them want it more than mom and dad.”
Karl says he reminds P.K, and his brothers that they are “pioneers” who stand on the shoulders of players of color who went before them.
“I look at the work that so many people have done whether it’s Willie O’Ree, or Herb Carnegie and others – Mike Marson, the McKegney brothers, they also paved the way,” he said. “Maybe there was a gap in between. So whether it’s my boys or (Edmonton Oilers prospect Darnell) Nurse, we’re starting to close that gap, especially at the professional level. I say to P.K. ‘You’re a pioneer, you’re an inspiration and hope for so many.’”
Getting three boys to the pro hockey level isn’t an easy task for any family. For Karl, whose family moved to Canada from Jamaica when he was 11, and wife Maria, whose family arrived in the Great White North from the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, negotiating the sport initially had its challenges.
“Our connection to hockey is as far as the distances we traveled to Canada,” Karl told me. “That’s the way I sort of summarize it.”
Karl was bitten by the hockey bug as a kid. He learned to skate while growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, and enjoyed watching the Sudbury Wolves play. The team had a talented forward on its roster, Marson, who later became the NHL’s second black player when he was drafted by the Washington Capitals in the team’s inaugural 1974-75 season.
Karl went on to play basketball at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., and went into teaching upon graduation. But he still had hockey on his mind. He bought P.K. his first pair of skates when he was 2 1/2. By four, the tyke was playing in a house league. About that time, “Maria and I decided he’s going to skate every day,” Karl told me.
Before they were stars, P.K., right, and Malcolm Subban often skated with dad.
That often called for Karl to take P.K. to the rink late at night after he got home from work from two vice principal jobs in Toronto. It also meant that sometimes Maria would put an exhausted P.K. to bed after midnight still dressed in his snowsuit.
It’s a recipe that Karl followed with Malcolm and Jordan and with daughters, Natassia and Natasha, in their athletic endeavors. You see, Karl Subban is a firm believer in practice. He was “Outliers” author Malcolm Gladwell long before Gladwell wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a task.
With that philosophy, Karl Subban isn’t a fan of Allen Iverson. You could almost feel him shaking his head in disbelief over the phone as he recalled the Philadelphia 76ers star point guard’s infamous 2002 rant after being questioned about his practice habits.
“We’re talking about practice?” Iverson said, repeating the P-word 20 times during the course of his discourse. “I mean listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice? Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last but we’re talking about practice, man.”
Fingernails on a blackboard for Karl, a retired public school principal.
“What a wrong message to give kids who are looking up to him. You don’t get better by playing, you get better by practicing,” he told me. “With my boys…I wouldn’t be as upset if they missed a game, but if they missed an opportunity to skate, or to practice, or to shoot pucks, that didn’t sit well with me, that bothered me a tremendous amount.”
Masked man Malcolm Subban in action with Providence Bruins.
Practice and hard work have paid off for Karl’s boys – and will pay off handsomely for P.K. He scored 10 goals and 43 assists in 82 games for the Canadiens last season, ranking fifth among NHL defensemen. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, he tallied 5 goals and 9 assists in 17 games, finishing fourth among defensemen in scoring.
As a restricted free agent, P.K.’s 2013-14 exploits – including logging a whopping 33 minutes of ice time in a Game 4 loss to the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final – will likely translate into a long-term deal that exceeds $7 million per-season from Montreal or another team that bids for his services.
“Obviously, everybody wants a long-term deal, in a place where they like to play,” Subban told The Montreal Gazette last month. “But there’s a lot of different things to consider in a contract negotiation. There’s stability for the family. There’s what’s in the best interest of the player and in the best interest of the team, for the organization moving forward.”
“And,” he added, “proper compensation.”
While P.K. waits for an adjustment of digits in his paycheck, Malcolm is adjusting to life as a professional hockey player. In shifting from the OHL to the AHL, Malcolm went from being the main Bull to a back-up Bruin in net. He appeared in 33 games for Providence, won 15 lost 10 and sported a 2.31 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage.
He played in six Calder Cup Playoffs games for Providence and came away with a 2-2 record and 2.96 goals-against average.
“It was challenging, to be honest,” Malcolm told NHL.com. “When it’s something you’re not used to, like I’m used to playing a lot of games and being the go-to guy, so it was kind of tough being the secondary guy. But I just had to stay focused mentally. I think that was the hardest thing for me mentally, just to stay focused and earn my way. And you know you don’t play as much, so you know when you get a chance to play you’ve got to play well, and that’s what I tried to do.”
Jordan is waiting for his chance to show what he can do as a pro. He recently attended the Canucks’ prospect camp and impressed the team’s brain
Jordan Subban is waiting for his shot at the NHL. (Photo by Aaron Bell/OHL Images)
trust. He played 66 games for Bellvelle last season, scoring 12 goals and 30 assists.
“Jordan has high-end offensive skill and you can see, when they do the offensive drills, his ability to handle the puck and get his shot through to the net,” Canucks General Manager Jim Benning told The Ottawa Citizen. “He has really good lateral movement and he can also move the puck up the ice either with a good first pass or skating it out of his own end.”
With his three sons busy pursuing their hockey careers, Karl Subban is still busy building the family’s hockey legacy. He takes his 3-year-old grandson – Legacy Bobb , son of Natassia Subban-Bobb – ice skating often. Legacy’s baby twin brothers, Epic and Honor, will get the same quality time with granddad after Santa delivers them ice skates this Christmas.
“We go out, no hockey stick, no games, use what I did with the boys,” he said of his time with Legacy. “I’m on the ice with him, he never cries. It’s funny, I want him to skate but we never talk about skating. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.”
The Old Spice Guy is the epitome of perfection. Chiseled and confident, he’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” the television commercials say.
But when he’s not shirtless, in a shower, or on a horse in the TV spots, the Old Spice Guy – aka actor Isaiah Mustafa – has skates on his feet and a stick in his hand, working diligently to perfect his hockey game. Mustafa, to put it mildly, is a puck nut.
“Old Spice Guy” Isaiah Mustafa takes his stick everywhere – even to South Africa.
He has a goal in his garage that he fires 300 pucks into daily; when he’s not traveling he’s at his local rink at 6:30 a.m. every day for a morning skate and pickup game; when he does travel he takes his hockey stick with him to practice his stickhandling; he has a Budweiser goal light that goes off every time his beloved Los Angeles Kings score; and he’s a Kings season ticket holder.
The success of the Old Spice ads has enabled Mustafa to mix business with hockey pleasure. He’ll be in Sochi, Russia, in February hawking Old Spice at the 2014 Winter Olympics and catching a hockey game or two. He attended the NHL Awards show in Las Vegas last year, and was mistakenly taken for a Vancouver Canucks fan when he visited the city for Old Spice during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final.
Mustafa admits that he’s hardly the second coming of Wayne Gretzky when he’s on the ice. The former National Football League practice squad player/turned actor is a relative late-comer to playing hockey – but he’s game for developing his game.
He attended a Weekend Warriors adult hockey camp in Montreal in summer 2012 to sharpen his skills and tweeted “Apparently there’s a whole left side of my body that needs to learn to skate.”
Mustafa, center, with friends at an adult hockey camp. (Rick Parisi, Weekend Warriors Hockey).
“I look at it like this: I gotta catch up,” Mustafa told me. “I gotta catch up with these dudes who’ve been playing all their lives. If I don’t start by doing crazy training, which I’m used to from football, I’ll be one of the dudes that just gets out there – a weekend player. I can’t just do that. I literally have to be the best I can be.”
Mustafa says he’s always loved hockey and the Kings, but he didn’t start playing the game until 2001. A woman he was dating at the time had a son who wanted to play hockey, so she bought equipment for him and Mustafa.
“She’s like ‘If you take him he’ll keep playing.’ So I ended up taking him a few times and the kid just stops, he didn’t want to play anymore,” Mustafa said. “I went a couple times more, like pickup games. Then I started acting, got busy and didn’t start thinking about skating anymore until right around the time the Kings won the Stanley Cup” in 2012.
After the Weekend Warriors camp, Mustafa joined a team that played in a tournament in Las Vegas but he “got so frustrated because of the fact I was the worst player out there.”
“I was, like, ‘screw it, I’m going to play everyday and in one year when I play in this tournament again I’m going to shock the s*** out of you guys,” he said, laughing. “That’s what I’ve been doing since mid-July. It’s been non-stop.
And he’s been watching hockey non-stop. When a relationship fizzled in 2011, Mustafa didn’t drown his sorrow in booze or women. He called his cable provider instead and ordered the NHL Center Ice package. He watched NHL Network “every damn day to learn the game inside out.”
“I literally watched every game I could possibly watch,” Mustafa told me. “I got to know (NHL Tonight analysts) Jamie McLennan and Kevin Weekes so good, I would just tweet them ‘like Hey guys, nice show, nice comment.’ I learned way more than any person should know that season.”
Mustafa said when people see the Old Spice Guy on the ice they “sometimes do a double-take and they go ‘Hey, are you…’ and I’m like, ‘yeah.'”
“Then they always ask ‘What got you into hockey,'” he said. “I just want to play, I want to challenge myself to see how good I can get. Honest-to-God, I think I’m getting better, but I’ve ‘ve got a ways to go.”
Inquiring minds want to know: Does the Old Spice Guy smell good after three sweat-drenched periods of hockey?
“He ALWAYS smells good,” Mustafa insisted. “If you asked him he would literally slap ‘good’ into your mouth and tell you to use Old Spice body wash because it prevents people from asking such asinine questions. But that’s just him.”
Malcolm Subban moves from Bruins training camp to its AHL farm team’s camp (Photo: Terry Wilson/OHL)
The Boston Bruins cut goaltender Malcolm Subban from its training camp Sunday after he gave up eight goals in a pre-season home loss against the Detroit Red Wings Thursday night and earned the mock cheers of the TD Bank Garden crowd.
Subban, chosen by Boston with 24th pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, and three other Bruins prospects were assigned to report to the training camp of the Providence Bruins, Boston’s American Hockey League affiliate in Rhode Island, when it begins next week.
The brother of Norris Trophy-winning defenseman P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks defensive prospect Jordan Subban, was a long shot to make the Bruins’ 2013-14 roster. With Tuukka Rask locked in as the Bruins’ starting goaltender, the only question facing Boston is who will be the Finnish star’s back-up.
Subban’s demotion was sealed after he looked shaky in Boston’s embarrassing 8-2 loss to Detroit in which he played the entire game.
“I thought the fourth goal was one he could have had,” Bruins Head Coach Claude Julien told The Boston Herald. “After that I think it was the fifth and the seventh (that were bad). Although he gave up a bad goal in the second period, we wanted him to battle through it.”
Subban, a former standout goalie for the Ontario Hockey League’s Bellville Bulls, told The Herald after that game that “it seemed like no matter what I did the puck found its way in.
“There were a couple of bad bounces, but I didn’t do my part tonight,” he said.
But Subban didn’t stay downcast for long after his subpar performance. After the game, he was seen running the steps of an empty TD Bank Garden. “I’m looking at it (in) a positive way,” he told The Herald. “It’s probably a good thing. Now I can be more focused and start the game better.”
