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Powerade commercial’s black hockey player powers through tough times

23 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Des Moines Buccaneers, Frozen Four, Harlem Nights, Jonathon Robinson, March Madness, Saskatoon Blades, Swift Current Broncos, USHL, Washington Capitals, WHL

Jonathon Robinson has been religiously tuning into the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament on television looking for ice hockey.

No, the 20-year-old San Diego native isn’t confusing this month’s basketball fest with next month’s NCAA Frozen Four hockey tournament.

He’s been checking out the basketball games to see if a television commercial that debuted during last year’s March Madness and featured him playing hockey is airing again during this year’s tournament.

Jonathon Robinson calls TV commercial one of the best moments in hockey career.

Jonathon Robinson calls TV commercial one of the best moments in hockey career.

Robinson was the black hockey player in an ad for Powerade, a Coca-Cola brand sport drink, that generated a lot of buzz last year for challenging athletic and societal stereotypes. The 31-second spot featured quick cuts of athletes seemingly against type: a smallish basketball player going strong to the hoop; a slow defensive football player attacking a quarterback; and a female wrestler preparing to do battle against a male opponent.

Then there was Robinson, who skated towards the camera with his white teammates and asked whether he was “Not in the right sport?”

A year after the commercial premiered, Robinson remains thrilled that he had the opportunity to be in it and proud of the message – beyond selling a product – that the ad tried to convey.

“By saying those few lines and just the whole message of the commercial, it really  meant a lot more special to me than the normal guy would actually understand,” Robinson told me recently. “It was one of the best things that ever happened to me mainly because of all of the things I’ve been through with hockey.”

Robinson’s pursuit of a hockey career has taken him from California to Washington, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Atlanta, Coquitlam, British Columbia, Des Moines and back. He’s been through an alphabet of leagues – the British Columbia Hockey League, the North American Prospects Hockey League, the Western States Hockey League, the Tier 1 Elite Minor Midget Hockey League and tryouts with Western Hockey League and United States Hockey League teams.

At 14, Robinson was an 11th-round draft pick of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades in 2008. Doug Molleken, head scout for the Blades, told Canwest that he liked how Robinson skated and marveled how strong he was in with the puck in the corners of the rink.

“The had a hard time taking the puck away from him,” Molleken told the Canadian news service. “He’s gotta learn the game a little bit, but I think he’s going to be OK.”

But an injury kept him from competing in training camp, which helped launch his search for a hockey home. He had a 2011 tryout with the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos.  At 20, he finished the 2013-14 season playing for the WSHL’s Lake Tahoe Blue and now finds himself at the crossroad of his hockey career.

Robinson, skating for Lake Tahoe Blue, has been on a multi-city, multi-league hockey journey.

Robinson, skating for Lake Tahoe Blue, has been on a multi-city, multi-league hockey journey.

Robinson put his hockey dreams on hold in 2012 after he father, Rick, suffered a series of stokes. He moved from California to Arlington, Va., to help provide for his family while his father recovered.

“I had two jobs, I was a lifeguard and I was also cleaning grocery stores,” he said. “The stores were in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. I would leave the house around 5 a.m., start working around 6 a.m. and get home around 7:30 at night.”

Whenever he had time, Robinson tried to stay in hockey shape by attending stick and puck sessions at Virginia’s Kettler Capitals Iceplex, the practice facility of the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals.

Robinson temporarily halted his hockey career when dad suffered series of strokes.

Robinson temporarily halted his hockey career when dad suffered series of strokes.

And it was a good thing that he did. In January 2013, Robinson received a phone call from a friend in California who told him about auditions for the Powerade commercial.

“The timing could not have been better,” he said. “The year before, I was playing in the BCHL, that was my draft year, and I had separated my shoulder and my dad had three strokes and five brain surgeries.”

When he arrived at the casting call, Robinson said he found about 25 other black hockey players and actors vying for the role.

“The audition was throughout the day,” he recalled.  “I got there first, I was the first person to audition, and I stayed a good hour after that just watching the other guys.”

But Robinson had a leg-up on the competition because of his family background in show business. His dad was a cinematographer and his mother, Dawn, was an assistant on the set of the 1989 Eddie Murphy movie “Harlem Nights.”

The early exposure to the film business helped Jonathon land a cameo role in an episode of the old NBC hit series “Friends” in which he kicked Ross – played by actor David Schwimmer – in the face.

About a week-and-a half after the Powerade audition, Robinson headed to Iowa for a

Robinson in Powerade ad.

Robinson in Powerade ad.

tryout with the USHL Des Moines Buccaneers. He received a callback for the commercial during the tryout with instructions to scurry back to Hollywood ASAP.

Elated, Robinson caught the next flight to California – leaving his hockey equipment behind in Des Moines.

“I left all my gear in the locker room of the USHL team,” he said. “I had to  borrow some gear from some owners of teams I knew.”

Robinson recalls spending 12 hours on the ice shooting the commercial at the Pickwick Ice Center in Burbank and doing about 40 takes on just one scene that required him to check an opposing player hard into the boards.

“I remember at the end of it the kid was dead, he was begging not to be hit anymore,” Robinson said. “We had a couple of takes where I was laughing because of something the director yelled out while we were filming.”

These days, Robinson is working on the Phase Two of his young life. He plans to enroll in college this summer to study cinematography. But hockey still isn’t out of his system. He hopes to coach or teach at hockey camps.

“I want to coach kids, youth hockey players, be able to bring them up, and help them chase their dreams,” he said.

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Everett Silvertips trio, Punjabi hockey broadcast, highlight game’s growth

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers, Everett Silvertips, Nashville Predators, Seth Jones, Vancouver, WHL

They share a heritage, they share a team, and two of them share a line. But Everett Silvertips forwards Jujhar Khaira, Manraj Hayer and Tyler Sandhu have something else in common: undeniable talent.

The three Vancouver-area players are among the top seven in scoring on their Western Hockey League major junior team. Their scoring numbers jump off the stat sheets, but the trio also opens eyes because they are among a small but steadily growing number of Indian players who are helping change the color of hockey.

Everett Silvertips' Manraj Hayer (Photo: Christopher Mast Images)

Everett Silvertips’ Manraj Hayer (Photo: Christopher Mast Images)

“Kids have kind of seen us in the WHL and see players go into the AHL and NHL and they’re kind of taking note that it can be done,” said Hayer, 20, who was fourth on the team in scoring with 11 goals and 17 assists in 33 games before being sidelined by a concussion. “Lately, lots of East Indian kids have started to play hockey. Little kids have come up to me and said ‘I’ve seen you play and I want to follow in your footsteps.’ That’s kind of cool.”

Sandhu, who plays on a line with Hayer, seconded his teammate’s “cool.” “It’s exciting and an honor to have kids look up to you as you looked up to older players,” said Sandhu, 18, who is fifth on the Silvertips with 13 goals and 14 assists in 40 games. “For our culture, it feels good to be able to be part of a lot kids’ development in how they look at hockey and how they dream about playing as well. For me, it’s a dream of mine to play in the NHL and I just hope kids in my culture have that dream as well.”

Carolina Hurricanes center Manny Malhotra is currently the only Indo-Canadian player in the National Hockey League. But a next generation of players could be on the way in the near future, fueled by an interest in hockey that’s grown so large within Canada’s South Asia community that CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” airs broadcasts in Punjabi.

HNIC Punjabi's crew. Left to right: Analyst Bhola Singh Chauhan, analyst Inderpreet Cumo and play-by-play man Harnarayan Singh.

HNIC Punjabi’s crew. Left to right: Analyst Bhola Singh Chauhan, analyst Inderpreet Cumo and play-by-play man Harnarayan Singh.

“This broadcast has really helped the Punjabi community to connect with the sport,” Harbs Bains, president of the Surrey (British Columbia) Minor Hockey Association, told The New York Times last April. “It allows someone whose first language is not English to connect with the sport and between generations.”

Hockey is even slowly gaining a foothold in cricket-crazed India. A member of the International Ice Hockey Federation since 1989, the country of more than 1.2 billion people has more than 900 hockey players. In March 2012, India captured its first international ice hockey victory, a 5-1 over Macau at the IIHF’s Challenge Cup of Asia tournament.

Tyler Sandhu in action. (Photo: Christopher Mast/Everett Silvertips)

Tyler Sandhu in action. (Photo: Christopher Mast/Everett Silvertips)

Hayer, 20, began playing hockey as a child because his older brother did. But Hayer never played with another Indian player in a game until Silvertips Head Coach and former NHL bench boss Kevin Constantine put him on a line with Sandhu in Everett two seasons ago.

“It’s been a different experience, I’ve never played with another East Indian player my whole life on any of my teams,” he told me recently. “It’s kind of cool just to be playing on his line. I think it kind of makes history – I don’t think it’s ever been done before, so it’s kind of cool.”

Hayer, Sandhu and Khaira were brought together in Everett, a city of 104,000 about 30 miles north of Seattle, by coincidence. Sandhu was among four prospects the Silvertips obtained in a May 2012 trade with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks in exchange for the rights to defenseman Seth Jones. Jones, a Nashville Predators rookie this season, was the fourth overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft.

Khaira, who’s seventh on the Silvertips in scoring with 10 goals and 11 assists in 30 games, played 37 games for Michigan Tech during the 2012-13 season. He exited college with three years of NCAA eligibility left after signing with the Oilers. He came to the Silvertips in a May 2012 trade from the WHL’s Prince George Cougars

Jujhar Kharia, a 2012 Edmonton Oilers 3rd-round pick (Photo/Christopher Mast/Everett Silvertips).

Jujhar Kharia, a 2012 Edmonton Oilers 3rd-round pick (Photo/Christopher Mast/Everett Silvertips).

“It was a lot of fun, it was probably one of the best years of my life,” Khaira said of his time at Tech. “The style of play is completely different. In college, you’re playing against older guys who are 23-24 years old and here you’re playing against guys who are 16, 17 so there’s a big difference in age.”

As for his future with the Oilers, the 19-year-old said “I’m going to focus on this season and develop my game as best as possible, and then try to make an impression at (the Oilers) camp next year and see where it goes from there.”

Hayer was scouted and signed by the Silvertips in the 2010-11 season.

The three have never played on a line together during a WHL game, but have during practices. Would they like to join the ranks of the 1970s Buffalo Sabres all-French-Canadian “French Connection” led by Gilbert Perreault ,” the Boston Bruins’ German-Canadian “Kraut Line” of the 1940s that featured Milt Schmidt, or the famed “Black Aces,” an all-black minor league line in the 1940s headlined by Herb Carnegie?

“It would be cool, but at the same time Kevin Constantine knows what he’s doing and what he needs in a line,” Khaira said. “So I’m really confident in him and what he has for us.”

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