As the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks head west for games three and four of the NHL Western Conference finals, the Sharks’ Joel Ward is playing a major role.
Ward, one of the NHL’s black stars, had one of his most productive offensive seasons in his eight-year career with 21 goals and 22 assists. He has added a pair of goals and five assists during San Jose’s playoff run.
Called “a playoff warrior” by NHL.com, Ward has played in 67 postseason games with the Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals and Sharks.
Ward thought he had tied the series’ first game at 2-2. However, an inadvertent whistle cost him the goal.
During the second period, Ward busted in on goalie Brian Elliott and fired a shot. It got under Elliott’s pads and slowly slid past the goal line.
But the whistle had blown prematurely. After play continued, officials admitted to the Sharks’ bench that it was a blown call.
“It is what it is,” Ward said.
Born in the Toronto suburb of North York, Ontario, Ward is one of three sons born to the late Randal Ward and his mother Cecilia. Both were immigrants from Barbados.
After a stellar youth career, he attended the University of Prince Edward Island. He was a three-time team MVP and graduated with a degree in sociology.
After signing with the Minnesota Wild of the NHL, he played a season with its minor-league Houston Aeros. He made his NHL debut during the 2006-7 season, playing in 11 games.
In 2012, Ward scored the goal for the Capitals that eliminated the Boston Bruins from the playoffs. It was marred by racist taunts and insults on social media.
“All I was trying to do is what, you know, everyone else is trying to do, just to score,” he said during a 2015 NPR interview. “And the fact that, you know, the color of my skin played a role into that and how people just were upset about it. And, I mean, people wanted me dead for scoring a goal, so it was definitely shocking for sure.”
He also said attitudes are changing because of the large number of minority players taking up the game of hockey.
“When I go back home to Toronto and see all the rinks and the kids filled up with all different races and ethnicities, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s come a long way for sure.”
MLB hiring report card
The annual study by Richard Lapchick of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida concluded MLB earned a C-plus in hiring managers
There were only three managers of color guiding one of MLB’s 30 teams – and that number is already down to two since the study appeared.
Dusty Baker of the Washington Nationals and Dave Roberts of the L.A. Dodgers are black, and Fredi Gonzalez of the Atlanta Braves is Hispanic. Gonzalez was sacked on Tuesday.
In 2009, there were 10 managers of color.
“Baseball needs to re-emphasize the importance of having a diverse … (group of) people running the game,” Lapchick told the Associated Press.
There is a major difference between hiring at the league office and individual teams.
MLB earned an A-plus for racial hiring practices and B-minus for gender hiring practice.
Teams, however, earned an F for hiring female candidates overall, an F for hiring minority vice presidents, a C for senior team administration positions, and a C for professional administration.
If MLB made clubs include minority and female candidates in the interview process for all VP and senior administrative roles it “would dramatically change things,” according to Lapchick.
“From my point of view, if they can influence the clubs to have a mandatory, diverse pool of candidates for senior administrative positions, that’s going to make a major difference,” he said.
As for black players – of which the St. Louis Cardinals have zero – 8.3 percent of players identified themselves as black or African-American on MLB Opening Day rosters. This is the same percentage as a year ago.
There is some potential good news in the future. The study found that baseball’s 2015 amateur draft had the highest percentage of black players taken in the first round — nine of 36 players, or 25 percent — since 1992.
Rams to the rescue
Thieves recently got away with $7,000 to be used for some new football equipment at Cleveland High School in Reseda, California.
Samantha Koerner, a players’ mother, called on the new kids in town for assistance – and it worked!
“Somebody suggested I send an email to (Rams COO Kevin Demoff). I thought he wouldn’t read it,” she told the Orange County Register.
“Within five minutes, he emailed me back and said, ‘The Rams are on it. We’re going to do what we can to help,’” she said.
The Rams sent clothing, gloves, cleats and helmets. Defensive end Robert Quinn also showed up with the donation and met the team
“That shows you what the Rams, the team, is about,” Quinn told the L.A. Times.
By the way, you’ll be reading about the Rams in this column throughout the year. The childish attitudes on display by many fans and media members since the franchise’s departure are an embarrassment to this community.
You can hate on owner Stan Kroenke all you want, but don’t blame the players. Also, don’t excuse the civic leaders and politicians who buried their respective heads in the ground for almost a decade and built Kroenke’s highway to L.A.
Alvin A. Reid is a panelist on the Nine Network program, Donnybrook and appears on ABC’s The Allman Report and several sports radio shows. His Twitter handle is @aareid1.
