JOSHUA FREE
Islanders letting Ho-Sang be himself, and that could be good for the club
You can be a lot of things in hockey. You can be black or brown or even Jewish. But what the old, crusty lords of the game tend to discriminate against are creativity, flashiness and cockiness.
Josh Ho-Sang, the Islanders’ electrifying, 21-year old rookie, is all of these things.
So when he played junior hockey in Canada, the knock against him was that he was a bad team guy. He was selfish. So much so that 27 picks went by before he was selected in the 2014 draft because of his supposed over-confidence, stemming from a long line of tall tales about HoSang marching to the beat of a different drummer. Vancouver passed him over twice. The Isles even passed on him with the fifth overall pick, taking Oshawa left wing Michael Dal Colle before trading up to get him at 28th in the first round.
“It seems to be a bigger deal with me and that’s OK,” Ho-Sang said. “It’s helped me develop as a person and I’m quite proud of who I am today. Without maybe one of those articles, I may be a different person.”
“He’ll fit right in,” Isles general manager Garth Snow said at the time. “They s--t on me too.”
Indeed, Ho-Sang was labeled as a player who was stubborn to conform within a team structure. He was too flashy. He was too confident. He didn’t try hard enough. They called him immature and they said he had attitude problems. He was supposed to be all about himself.
Former NHL wildman Matthew Barnaby was one of many analysts who questioned the kid’s heart and Ho-Sang didn’t make many friends in old-school hockey circles when he told a Toronto newspaper before his draft that “There are guys ahead of me who are nowhere near me.”
If that crush of criticism sounds familiar, it’s because P.K. Subban was saddled with some of the same sharp evaluation while he played in Montreal, before the Canadiens traded his over-sized personality to Nashville last June. Subban is one of the most energetic and affable characters in the conservative NHL, a larger-thanlife ambassador who was a favorite with fans but not with coaches or teammates, a guy who donated $10 million to Montreal Children’s Hospital and stands out as one of the most generous professional athletes in any sport.
Like Subban, Ho-Sang wants to make enough money to help kids on that grand a level. But also like Subban, Ho-Sang has darker skin than most of the NHL.
Patrick Kane and Alex Ovechkin have also been dogged by similar criticism, but exactly no teams passed on the chance to draft those two flashy, creative players. They both were selected first overall, Ovechkin in 2004 and Kane in 2007. It’s not hard to pick up on the coded racism in sports, where white players are called “colorful” while black players are labeled “problems.” So when Ho-Sang was criticized for being different, for playing with too much flair, it felt like he was being discriminated against. It didn’t help when the gifted offensive playmaker was left off Team Canada teams growing up because coaches were turned off by his game, his tendency to hold the puck too long.
His father, Wayne, is a black Jamaican tennis player. HoSang’s mother, Ericka, is a Chilean Jew. His grandfather is Chinese, and Ho-Sang grew up in a house with a bible in one hand and a Torah in the other. He is a rare combination, an observant Jew who celebrates all the holidays and plans to one day have a bar mitzvah, the Jewish comingof-age ceremony, alongside his future children. He said he didn’t have one when he was 13, the typical age for a bar mitzvah, because he was traveling and playing hockey.
“As long as my family knows who I am and I don’t put them ever in a position where they’re embarrassed it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in the outside,” he said. “I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that. My family knows who I am.”
Hockey has plenty of stories of black players, an extreme minority within the sport, pelted with bananas or taunts on the ice. Ho-Sang, certainly an attractive target for bigots because of his multicultural background, says he’s never experienced that stuff first-hand.
“I’ve never even had a hint of that,” he said. “It’s a tribute to the diversified community that hockey is trying to grow and I think that, from the outside looking in, I’m sure people you know, maybe writers and stuff, have that attitude towards me and they’re trying to spark something. But in terms of the hockey community, I haven’t really seen anything. I’ve heard stories, but from personal experience, I think everybody’s been pretty kind to me.”
New York’s introduction to Ho-Sang legitimized some of those early character concerns. His NHL career got off to a poor start when he overslept for his first practice at his first training camp in 2015. He was immediately sent back to juniors.
He hadn’t been back with the big club for any extended time until this season. But since early March, he’s been a regular with the Islanders. He scored eight points in 15 games this season. He is also quickly proving himself to be the team’s most exciting player when he has the puck.
“His talent is formidable,” Isles coach Doug Weight said. “He’s a difference maker.”
Weight has spent a lot of time dissecting film with Ho-Sang and he continues to admire the 21-year-old’s desire to learn and improve. Those stories about a cocky, un-coachable kid have not materialized.
“Our job is to get to know a person and it’s not accurate,” Weight said. “He’s a confident kid, but he’s a respectful kid. I think there’s a difference between being arrogant and being a kid who just loves to play the game and have fun. He’ll tell you, when he makes a mistake, he’s having too much fun. He has the puck and he’s wheeling around and … he loses his place in the game. It’s not about embarrassing people. I promise you, a genuine trait of his is he’s a very respectful kid and he’s not arrogant. He’s quiet, he respects his
older teammates and respects the game.
“Everyone else you tell ’em, ‘Hey, just have fun; it’s another game.’ Him, I’m telling him ‘Hey, don’t have too much fun.’”
In Weight’s eyes, those early scouting reports, some of the antics that were publicized in junior hockey that scared off almost the entire league before the Isles took Ho-Sang 28th three years ago, were not accurate.
But beyond those stories about a problem child, hockey is a sport that does not look favorably on creative players, guys who play the game with a certain kind of flair. Ho-Sang doesn’t seem like a guy who is going to ever change the type of person and player he is. And that may be a good thing for the stuffy NHL.
Last week, Ho-Sang was booed every time he touched the puck in Pittsburgh because he’s chosen to wear No. 66 as a tribute to Mario Lemieux. Some hockey fans feel the number shouldn’t be worn by anyone else, which is just ridiculous after generations of players have worn No. 9 because of Gordie Howe. How many defensemen wear No. 4 for Bobby Orr?
Respected hockey writer Michael Farber tweeted “Josh HoSang can wear any number he likes, but 4 and 9 are regular hockey numbers. No. 66 is a vanity license plate.” While Lemieux has said he doesn’t mind the kid wearing his old number, the booing just added to the controversy that’s always seemed to follow Ho-Sang around.
“To me, the things I’ve described, (his) skill and speed and willingness to want the puck in key situations and still has great respect for the game and his teammates,” Weight said. “It might not come off like that. He’s a flashy player, right? Look at this kid coming up the ice with the jersey and people starve for it, but they naturally want to say he’s cocky.”
Imagine for a minute someone criticizing an NFL receiver for being too electrifying. Or an NBA star playing with too much energy. Or a baseball player carrying himself with too much confidence. For whatever reason, hockey still lags behind those sports in the leeway players are given to be themselves. It’s no wonder the NHL lags behind those leagues in overall interest, too.
Hockey needs more characters. The Islanders seem to have one in Ho-Sang.
“All my life, people have been saying you’re not going to be able to play the way you play in the NHL and I think that a lot of those people are seeing that I can,” he said. “It’s just a matter of being able to manage it. Partially, they’re right. And partially, they’re wrong. I think it’s just about growing your game.”
As Ho-Sang’s game matures, there’s no reason why he can’t help to lead the Islanders to respectability and help to bring more eyeballs to the game of hockey. But for right now, he’s just trying to get better. And prove all his critics wrong every chance he gets.
“I’ve definitely had some proud moments,” he said. “When I skate with the puck through the neutral zone, I’ve had a lot of people tell me I wasn’t going to be able to do that here. And so, that’s pretty cool.
“Every time I do, I feel like I’m proving somebody wrong.”