NHL players who have grew up with adversity?

[Zenos]

Hockey is a rich white guys sport, these guys don’t grow up with the same circumstances/in the same neighborhoods as many ball players. Much easier to stay out of trouble when you aren’t living in an environment that breeds it...

This is absolutely true. But I think it's also worth noting that also rich guys (of any race, culture, etc.) can face adversity in other forms. Obviously wealth can insulate you from many things - but I'm sure there's a number of NHL players who have faced adversity in the form of abusive parents, mental health issues, substance abuse, or sexual assault.

 

[Albatros]

Didn't Datsyuk grow up in poverty? Kuznetsov also, I believe.

Andrei Nikolishin was born in the forced labor colony of Vorkuta where his father had been imprisoned.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Damn that's really sad I heard stories in America where great basketball prospects were "funded" their expenses of playing.

Yes, those prospects would likely have been found in school phys ed programs. Schools can't afford to run hockey (aside from floor hockey or field hockey maybe) for the most part. Not to mention that a basketball is pretty easy to come across compared to hockey gear. If a kid can afford a basketball, he can afford a super cheap crappy stick and a ball, but not the rest of the gear. It's hard to develop skating skills when you don't have access to ice. It's relatively easy to develop the footwork needed for basketball. You just need a hard surface and some shoes.

 

[Akrapovince]

Yeah, agreed with the demographic of kids and their social upbringing being related to success in hockey.

However, I know it’s unrelated but when it comes to this, hockey doesn’t hold a candle to Formula 1.

 

[MaxV]

Adversity can come in other forms other then poverty, BTW.

Theo Fleury is one example.

 

[Lunatik]

Depends on the type of adversity.

Leland Irving beat childhood cancer.
Travis Hamonic lost his dad at a young age and he and his siblings had to help run their farm.
Keith Aulie saved his dad's life when his tractor fell through the ice.
The members of the 2007-08 Windsor Spitfires who had their captain die mid-season.

 

[Mikeshane]

Theoren Fleury
Sheldon Kennedy

 

[Larry Hanson]

I would think that there are 100's of players past and present who've had to deal with serious issues, you just don't always hear about it because it doesn't end up involving the cops. You mentioned being raised by a single mother, there must be tons of them, off the top of my head I know Iginla was. How many dealt with alcoholic and/or abusive parents. It's not just kids from the Brady Bunch family that make the NHL.

How many kids did predators like Graham James mess up for life yet never came forward. We heard about Sheldon Kennedy and Theo Fleury but I doubt they were the only ones.

 

[BOS358]

I'd contribute a few names to this list, but I don't see why it's anybody's business.

 

[405Entrance]

Hockey isn’t like the other big 4 where you just need a ball and a field/court to play. It’s also gotten considerably more expensive within the last 50 years. You could probably find some people who came from dirt but it would be harder now. I’d imagine how many Gretzky’s the NHL has missed out on because they had to stop playing in order to help their families survive. I know the California teams are trying to build the sport by building rinks and giving equipment to kids but I don’t know if the other teams are doing the same as well

 

[majormajor]

Hockey isn’t like the other big 4 where you just need a ball and a field/court to play. It’s also gotten considerably more expensive within the last 50 years. You could probably find some people who came from dirt but it would be harder now. I’d imagine how many Gretzky’s the NHL has missed out on because they had to stop playing in order to help their families survive. I know the California teams are trying to build the sport by building rinks and giving equipment to kids but I don’t know if the other teams are doing the same as well

Teams all over the league are doing hockey is for everyone programs and paying for equipment and whatnot, it covers thousands of kids. Crosby himself has donated gear for hundreds or maybe thousands of poor kids.

Your overall point is true though, there's a huge amount of talent that is lost when families just can't afford the ice time.

 

[majormajor]

NHLers are largely and increasingly coming from rich kid backgrounds, as the sport becomes more expensive and demanding. But that's still far from being everybody.

"Kids who grew up in Russia in the 1990s" should encompass most of the NHLers who grew up in poverty. Russia was in a state of economic collapse in the 90s and many people were on the edge of survival. Alcoholism was at epidemic levels, you can look through rosters of Soviet teams from the 1980s and see how many of the players died in the 1990s - either from alcohol directly or from violence or car crashes. Half of some teams died young from various causes! Deaths from gang violence would have succeeded anything comparable in any part of the United States. Sport was an entirely public investment prior to that point and suddenly all public support disappeared. There were many rinks closed down.

So that makes it all the more stunning that a kid like Panarin was able to make it. Artemi wore shoes inside of his grandfather's skates, his grandmother sewed his gloves from old leather, and they taped together discarded equipment that they found. He was still far from the rink and had to travel on public transport alone as a boy to get to Chelyabinsk, and he was supposedly often shaken down on the way.

The only exception to that would be guys that grew up in poverty in Siberia and other parts of Russia, like Panarin or Kuznetsov.

Didn't Datsyuk grow up in poverty? Kuznetsov also, I believe.

What are the stories with Datsyuk and Kuznetsov?

 

[GreatSaveEssensa]

I'd contribute a few names to this list, but I don't see why it's anybody's business.

You for real? Most of these players listed have come out about these very issues themselves. No one here is making fun of or looking down on these people. The opposite actually. To me they are an inspiration and would be looked upon as such by kids in similar situations Im sure. i think they call it being a ‘role model’?

 

[tabness]

how can you forget Tyler Seguin growing up in the hood?

 

[BOS358]

You for real? Most of these players listed have come out about these very issues themselves. No one here is making fun of or looking down on these people. The opposite actually. To me they are an inspiration and would be looked upon as such by kids in similar situations Im sure. i think they call it being a ‘role model’?

Yeah, I'm for real.

To the players who have come out about their upbringing: great. They have every right to do it. But for those whose story isn't particularly well known, I'm not sure that a bunch of anonymous message board posters, myself included, should be the ones making it public. As for the ones I could name, I'm sure it's been talked about in some article somewhere that me and a handful of other people have read. But I'm also not sure why people can't keep their private lives just that.

 

[majormajor]

Andrei Nikolishin was born in the forced labor colony of Vorkuta where his father had been imprisoned.

The most adversarial thing about Nikolishin's upbringing was the cold of Vorkuta, which is in the Arctic. Nikolishin and the other players had to play in -40, outside, and shovel snow off the ice before even beginning, not to mention not having any kind of zamboni or anything. Somehow he developed into a great player from that beginning.

I suspect the forced labor bit is misleading folks. Vorkuta wasn't a forced labor colony (gulag) anymore when Nikolishin was born, and hadn't been for almost two decades, since the mid 50s when the gulag system ended after Stalin died. His father was initially sent there as a prisoner but stayed for other reasons, perhaps because the pay was higher in the Arctic (yes people were paid varying salaries in the Soviet Union, not all the same amount as most Americans imagine).

 

[GreatSaveEssensa]

Yeah, I'm for real.

To the players who have come out about their upbringing: great. They have every right to do it. But for those whose story isn't particularly well known, I'm not sure that a bunch of anonymous message board posters, myself included, should be the ones making it public. As for the ones I could name, I'm sure it's been talked about in some article somewhere that me and a handful of other people have read. But I'm also not sure why people can't keep their private lives just that.[/QUOTE
All of the names I have seen have all been public about it anyways. You just sound kind of pompous by claiming you know of some but don't feel like sharing. Thats fine, but I’m sure you had heard through the grapevine as well, which means at some point you were doing exactly what you just claimed to not like. And thats talking about someones personal life.

 

[nowhereman]

Yeah, I'm for real.

To the players who have come out about their upbringing: great. They have every right to do it. But for those whose story isn't particularly well known, I'm not sure that a bunch of anonymous message board posters, myself included, should be the ones making it public. As for the ones I could name, I'm sure it's been talked about in some article somewhere that me and a handful of other people have read. But I'm also not sure why people can't keep their private lives just that.

This isn't the tabloids, where we're digging up dirt on people to use as social ammunition. Generally, when a player shares their personal experiences (be it poverty, addiction or abuse), they are doing so to inform and/or inspire others. Not to mention, I highly doubt there are many on this site who know the secret past/present lives of NHLers and are just now going to make it public in this thread. If people know about it, it's already public. You're getting this all wrong.

Anyway, Michael Ferland is a good example of a player who struggled through hardship as a youth. He grew up very poor but his single mother supported his dream through her own work, as well as donations from charities like KidSport and the Manitoba Métis Federation to pay for ice time and equipment. In continuation of my comment above, his story is a huge inspiration for many in the indigenous community.

 

[Kent Nilsson]

Bryan Fogarty

 

[Brodeur]

Madden remembers the good, not bad, from old neighbourhood

There has always been a long view and a short view of John Madden, who came out of one of the most notorious neighbourhoods in Toronto to become the New Jersey Devils' ace penalty killer and pest.

The short view is that Madden escaped the rough streets of Parma Court, a housing project in north Toronto, by choosing hockey over drugs. The long view, says Madden, is that that choice was easy, and there was a lot of good in that neighbourhood.

"People left me alone. They looked at me like I was the hockey player in the neighbourhood. They let me do my thing, go about my business. It was cool like that. Nobody ever harassed me."

"They" were a motley collection of drug dealers, petty criminals and other street people. Not everyone around Madden escaped the street's danger. He lost someone he knew to the streets two years ago. The brother of a friend was killed when a drug deal went sour.

"I lost one two years ago when there was a murder down there. There have been other things that happened," Madden said, making it clear they were things he does not care to discuss.

Madden, Cruising Not long ago he was an undrafted player from the Toronto projects. Now the Devils' John Madden has a Stanley Cup and the world at his feet

Since he was a baby, Madden lived in the Parma Court projects, a complex of houses off busy Victoria Park Avenue, in which the smell of marijuana would perfume the stairwells at night.

When he was 14 or 15, Madden would look out his bedroom window and see men selling narcotics on the street, wearing ski masks to hide their identity. "This was literally a drive-by drugstore," Madden says. "They kept the drugs in their jackets. Cars would pull up. They'd run up to the cars and make the exchange. My mom and I were like, Wow, this isn't good."

The boy who had to settle for a bowl of cereal for dinner because cereal was the only thing in the cupboard now dines out with his wife, Lauren, whenever they like.

"I do take a lot of Parma Court with me into my game," says Madden, who remains close to his boyhood friends. "I'm not ashamed of the way I was raised. I hold no grudges against kids who had everything, but when I go on the ice, I think of moments when I really wanted to do something and couldn't--like going to tournaments with other families because mine couldn't afford to take me. Nothing comes easy on the ice, and the same is true in life. You have to work for everything."

 

[BusQuets]

Teemu Selanne had to play with right handed hockey stick even though he's naturally left handed hockey player.

 

[McDNicks17]

Brandon Davidson is a good one.

His parents couldn't afford to put him in AAA. Eventually walked on to the Regina Pats and made their team. Ended up their captain in a few seasons.

Got drafted by the Oilers as an overager. In his first AHL season, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Beat that and made the Oilers a few seasons later. He looked really promising, but unfortunately a Matt Tkachuk slewfoot destroyed his knee and pretty much ended his career. Lost most of his mobility and has been a bit of a journeyman bouncing around between teams in the last few seasons.

 

[Puckstop40]

Hockey is a rich white guys sport, these guys don’t grow up with the same circumstances/in the same neighborhoods as many ball players. Much easier to stay out of trouble when you aren’t living in an environment that breeds it...

Pretty much this. Hockey is extremely expensive and those that make it to high levels come from wealth outside of a very small minority. It's a niche sport.

 

[McShogun99]

For most of the players born in the last 30 years controversy was having to buy their gear at Canadian Tire instead of Hockey Life.

 

[LokiDog]

Hockey is a rich white guys sport, these guys don’t grow up with the same circumstances/in the same neighborhoods as many ball players. Much easier to stay out of trouble when you aren’t living in an environment that breeds it...

Many of the European players, especially Eastern European, come from pretty impoverished backgrounds... then there’s guys like Bobby Ryan as well.