NHL players who have grew up with adversity?

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Georges Laraque had a pretty rough childhood IIRC.

 

[vpasla1]

I think Curtis Joseph had hard times growing up too, but don't remember his exact story..

He's talked about a few times and I believe he wrote about it in his book. Definitely a tough time for him.

 

[Mez]

Hockey is a wealthy mans sport...no need be racist and add a skin colour to it.

 

[dalewood12]

I agree that adversity can come in all forms.

For instance, Mike Cammalleri grew up in a wealthy family, but had to deal with ulcerative colitis as a kid.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Does NHL or other organizations do something to help poor kids get into hockey?

Sidney Crosby has helped a lot of kids in the Pittsburgh metro area get into hockey. I'm sure there's a few others in the NHL that are donating gear to the kids.

 

[lawrence]

Hockey is a wealthy mans sport...no need be racist and add a skin colour to it.

????? what the hell. I’m not wealthy I was able to play. I knew a ton of east van kids who were able to play organized hockey. Stop putting a label to hockey.

 

[hoglund]

????? what the hell. I’m not wealthy I was able to play. I knew a ton of east van kids who were able to play organized hockey. Stop putting a label to hockey.

You can play house hockey, but it can get expensive when you get to a high caliber league.

 

[Brodeur]

Just to add some of the mentions of the early 90's Russian hockey, here's an ESPN segment from 1994 when some of the Russian players returned (almost shockingly, Mike Milbury is subdued and did a nice job). The segment with Darius Kasparaitis showing the dilapidated facilities left an indelible mark in my brain from when I watched it as a kid.

 

[NeelyWasAWarrior]

Friggen wayne gretzky in my mind. He was a child prodigy and with that comes enormous expectations. He also had parents hating on him because he had the most ice time and the puck on his stick all game long.

He had to live up to a lot and he did and surpassed it.

 

[covfefe]

You made it to the NHL? Cool


BTW All winter sports are predominantly for rich white kids, not just hockey.
Yes there are exceptions here n there, but aside from the fall of the iron curtain, Money spent has been directly correlated to better training.
Especially for the NHL:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nh...mes-private-school-education-hockey-1.5437356


Shaun White used to get heli-lifted into mountains, and they'd drop in dynamite for him to skate in a bowl.
Snowboarder Shaun White Invents New Tricks to Stay Ahead of Competition | Duluth News Tribune

Yes, people of all social classes can compete in snowboarding, but guess who won all of the world championships and the golds and such.

Kind of, but not really, and like most things, the generalizations don't really help your case. Most of the top skiiers in the world are from countries where mountain access is far more accessible for average people. This explains why FIS/WC circuit is dominated by Europeans, not Americans and Canadians. Limit the talent pool: limit the outcomes.

There's even a taskforce in Canada with the express goal of getting kids from lower socio brackets into skiing, because we are getting lapped so hard running the sons and daughters of bankers as our prime athletes. I guess they took a cue from Bode Miller, one of the best ever, who grew up in a log cabin with no plumbing/electricity.

Freeride and freeskiing is even less 'rich white kid,' much more skate/surf influenced. Thus, draws in a different crowd than the POC-wearing Moncler lovers.

Not sure how you got the Shaun White reference in there but I will admit it's entertaining. He's basically the Carrot Top of the entire industry.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Hockey is a wealthy mans sport...no need be racist and add a skin colour to it.

Culturally, it is a very "white" sport separate and aside from wealth, even in Canada. Look down the bench at a Junior team's roster. It is not very representative of all of the people of Canada as a whole.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Hockey is a wealthy mans sport...no need be racist and add a skin colour to it.

It isn't racist to mention that it is mostly white people who play hockey. Unless you are suggesting that there are more wealthy white people than other races, which brings about another race discussion that is also not racist.

 

[abo9]

What pisses me off is that there are several comments in this thread calling it a "rich white kid sport". So we are allowed to now be racist on this board?

What if we called Basketball a "poor (blank) kid sport" or soccer a "poor (blank) kid sport).

Should not be allowed either way.

Adversity is different for everyone.....I grew up playing with Travis Zajac, he came from a well-off family, but I have never seen anyone else work as hard as he did towards a goal. He skipped out on a lot of social events and put a lot of hours in at the gym etc. Might not be typical adversity, but he knew what he had to do if he wanted to make it.

I think it's more like, people want inspiration from those in similar situations.
If you grow up super poor, or living through racism, you probably want inspiration from someone who lived through similar things (ie that Brashear story...).

Also, not to diminish Zajac's work, but I imagine that this story is shared by a ton of NHL players no? Imo 90% or more of them are example of dedication and perserverance due to the work involved to get there in the first place, but there are a few that overcame crazy odds to make it to the show.

 

[Puckclektr]

I’m pretty sure most NHL players have had adversity.
People keep calling it a rich white sport. Some are rich. Some are well off but it comes down to sacrifices. Many financial sacrifices are made in a lot of families.
If you are cautious with how you spend your money you can afford to put your kids through AAA. That being said you need to have a decent salary. It’s not just rich people.
As for adversity. People seem to forget what NHL kids have to go through in order to make it. Yes there are some who have natural talent and don’t have to try as hard. But most kids to make the NHL I’ve been on the ice 5 to 7 times a week 52 weeks a year, hitting the gym, doing school work, keeping jobs and missing out on a good portion of their social lives.
then at 15-16 Most NHL kids have already moved out away from their families.
What NHL kids have to go through is quite difficult and hard work in order to be committed to hockey. I couldn’t. I was pressured to play AAA by my parents and the coaches who fought to get me to play it. I didn’t want to leave my friends and play hockey virtually every night. I wanted to have a life.

 

[abo9]

Culturally, it is a very "white" sport separate and aside from wealth, even in Canada. Look down the bench at a Junior team's roster. It is not very representative of all of the people of Canada as a whole.

Do people call basketball a "black man's sport" ? I understand that calling hockey a "white man's sport" is used more as a descriptive than an insult, but I don't hear that from other sports... maybe I don't go out enough?

Don't get what it adds to the discussion either, is it a bad thing? a good thing?

I understand the emphasis on "rich", because hockey kinda excludes most people from poor background due to high cost, and it's a barrier to improve the popularity of the sport.

 

[Byron Bitz]

Pavel Datsyuk

 

[Byron Bitz]

Donald Brashear had a horrific childhood.
Brashear is the youngest of three children born to an African-American father, Johnny Brashear, and a white mother, Nicole Gauthier, who was mainly of French-Canadian descent, in Bedford, Indiana. His father was an alcoholic who relentlessly abused his family, including slashing Donald with belts and electrical cords. On one occasion, when Donald was only six months old, he picked him up and hurled him through a window.[2] Nicole, afraid that Johnny might kill her, left the family and returned to Canada. Later, she came back to take the children, but left Donald to live with his father for another four years,[2]until Donald's paternal grandmother sent him to Canada.[3] Donald's mother later stated that she left him behind because her future husband was prejudiced and wanted to avoid having another mixed-race child in the house.[2]
Brashear eventually moved in with his mother and stepfather in Lorretteville, Quebec. Unfortunately, because of his stepfather's racist attitude, he suffered further abuse in his new surroundings; for instance, he was forced to sleep with a garbage bag tied around his waist to keep him from wetting the bed, and was verbally berated for not being able to tie his shoes.[2] His mother finally decided to give him up to foster care, due in part because of what she called "mental problems" from the abuse he had suffered, and because he did not accept her as his mother.[2] Brashear lived in two different foster homes that sent him away since the families believed he was a "little too much to handle."[3]

 

[ElysiumAB]

Who is adversity?

 

[Byron Bitz]

Does NHL or other organizations do something to help poor kids get into hockey?

Yes

 

[EdJovanovski]

Panarin had one of the roughest upbringings of any professional athlete.

He was abandoned by his parents at 3 months old and was raised by his grandparents, he grew up so poor that his hockey equipment was stuff his grandpa found in a dumpster outside of a hockey rink; his skates were so big that he had to wear his shoes inside of the skates, his gloves were made by his grandma from the leather of a boot. He had to take a train alone to play hockey because it wasn’t accessible in the mining town he lived in and it was so dangerous his grandma would sew his money into his clothing so when he was routinely shook down by thugs they wouldn’t steal it. He went to try out for this elite team and his grandpa told him if he didn’t make it he would have to quit playing and go become a miner. He ended up making it. Then he went undrafted partially due to how undersized he is, worked his way up playing in Russia where he’s a political dissident, and now today is the second highest paid player in the NHL.

 

[GrizzGreen]

You can play house hockey, but it can get expensive when you get to a high caliber league.

Would argue that more of the upper-middle tier level of talent ends up being expensive... if you/your parents are paying for you to play somewhere past ~15, you're probably not doing too much with your career.

As some other people have mentioned, Panarin, etc. have had struggles growing up in Russia. Anyone coming over pre/just after the fall of the Soviet Union experienced a lot that most wouldn't be able to relate to.

Nowadays you're looking at a lot of the sons of NHL players coming into the league, who have the obvious benefit of their genetics, as well as having the network to have the best trainers, make the best teams, and financial backing to do whatever they want.

Playing for Shattuck, NSWC or BWC is probably not super realistic if your family isn't well off but plenty of kids can get scholarships to Taft, Andover, Avon, KUA, etc. if they have the talent

 

[McGarnagle]

Hockey is expensive, you need skates, sticks, pucks, ice time, pads. Youth leagues cost money with registration fees, then if you're serious about becoming something you have to join all the travel teams which cost even more, development camps, and all the equipment has to pass safety standards for USA Hockey or Hockey Canada so they cost even more, etc. There are a few outliers like Glen Metropolit who came out of bad situations, but 99% of the league is at least comfortably middle class. You're not going to see a lot of players coming out of the hood. Also, because of that there's no culture of hockey that attracts those types to watch the sport anyway like they do for basketball.

It's not like basketball where you just need a ball and a makeshift hoop and can practice all day long by yourself, then get an NCAA scholarship on raw athleticism.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It's about $10,000 a year per minimum. If you are not well off, it really has to be made a priority. It has a very high entrance cost even beyond getting into AAA whatever just because of all the equipment necessary so just to get your kid to try it out, it's a considerable commitment for something they may not like at all or be bad. People who here who always brag about what level of hockey they played in any NHL discussion are maybe just not aware of the level of privilege they had growing up...

 

[Sol]

I'd take the "problems" coming with money much, much rather than the ones coming from poverty.

They're equally bad in my opinion.

 

[hypereconomist]

I’m pretty sure most NHL players have had adversity.
People keep calling it a rich white sport. Some are rich. Some are well off but it comes down to sacrifices. Many financial sacrifices are made in a lot of families.
If you are cautious with how you spend your money you can afford to put your kids through AAA. That being said you need to have a decent salary. It’s not just rich people.
As for adversity. People seem to forget what NHL kids have to go through in order to make it. Yes there are some who have natural talent and don’t have to try as hard. But most kids to make the NHL I’ve been on the ice 5 to 7 times a week 52 weeks a year, hitting the gym, doing school work, keeping jobs and missing out on a good portion of their social lives.

By the time you factor in equipment and travel, it costs $10-15k per year for a kid to pay AA/AAA in Western Canada. Double that if your kid is playing spring hockey and doing additional training.

The median annual household income after taxes in Canada is around $62k per year ($70k Alberta, $62 in Ontario, $50k in Nova Scotia). There is no amount of financial restraint/caution that can free up a quarter of an average family's yearly budget for discretionary spending like elite hockey. Not to mention that hockey will continue to become more unfeasible for the average Canadian as house prices and the general cost of living continues to rise.