The 2021 NHL expansion team Seattle Kraken employees, left to right: Kyle Boyd, Kendall Boyd-Tyson, Everett Fitzhugh, Zack Peggins and De’Aira Anderson – at the Kraken preview centre in Seattle, Feb. 18, 2021.
Jane Gershovich/The Globe and Mail
Everett Fitzhugh grew up in Detroit. Unlike other kids in his neighbourhood, he fell in love with hockey at a young age. “When I wheeled my net out, [other kids] looked at me like I had two heads,” he says.
Kyle Boyd’s father was the first Black team physician in the NHL. Kyle grew up wearing No. 12 – the same as Jarome Iginla. “The thing that stands out for me is that, as a player of colour, there were not many heroes to look up to,” he says.
When she was a senior in high school in Pennsylvania, De’Aira Anderson told a guidance counsellor that her dream was to work in communications for a pro hockey team. “We joke that I kind of manifested my job,” Anderson says.
All three have converged as co-workers with the Seattle Kraken – and it is not by accident. The NHL’s newest team has gone out of the way to fill its staff with employees who reflect the multicultural makeup of its community. In doing so, it stands out as the most diverse franchise in the league.
“We are building a little different organization, and it has led to a better culture, self-esteem and pride,” says Tod Leiweke, the club’s part-owner, president and chief executive officer. “This is about doing the right thing, and doing the right thing for the game we love. We are better for it, no question.”
When the Kraken begins play next season, Fitzhugh will be the NHL’s first Black full-time play-by-play announcer. Boyd was hired as youth and community development director, and his sister, Kendall Boyd-Tyson, was brought in as vice-president of strategy and analytics. Anderson is corporate communications manager and the lone Black woman serving in that capacity in the league.
Along with them, the Kraken hired Hewan Teshome as senior vice-president and general counsel, former state representative Eric Pettigrew as vice-president of government relations and outreach, Princess Lawrence as manager of investor relations and special projects, Zack Peggins as a social-media specialist, Lamont Buford as vice-president of game presentation and Flora Taylor to manage the executive office. All are Black.
“I don’t see it as an issue to beat our chest on, but I am proud of it and emotional about it,” Leiweke said. “I love the game so much, and I don’t think of diversity as a challenge.
“This is an incredible privilege, and with every privilege comes obligation, and with obligation comes doing things right. You might have to look a little harder, but candidates are out there.”
De’Aira Anderson, corporate communications manager for the Seattle Kraken, is the lone Black woman serving in that capacity in the National Hockey League.
Jane Gershovich/The Globe and Mail
Anderson was chosen for her position from a field of 550 applicants. “De’Aira’s hiring was interesting to me,” says Katie Townsend, the Kraken’s senior vice-president of marketing and communications. “There were a lot of people I knew and a lot who were recommended to me that I thought would be good at it.”
From the interview process on, she was everyone’s favourite.
Fitzhugh says he was in third grade in the late 1990s when he watched a game between the Edmonton Oilers and Detroit Red Wings on television. He remembers that Georges Laraque, Mike Grier and Sean Brown were all playing for the Oilers at the time. All are Black.
“Hockey was dominated by white men,” Fitzhugh says. “When I saw that, I knew I could have a place in the game. I knew I belonged.”
Fitzhugh attended Bowling Green University and did play-by-play for its men’s hockey team. He also worked for one season in the USHL, and for the Cincinnati Cyclones, the Buffalo Sabres’ affiliate in the ECHL.
After a story about him appeared in The Athletic, he was contacted by the Kraken, which was searching for the voice of its team.
“I never expected to hear from someone in the NHL,” Fitzhugh says. “I thought some of my Cyclone friends were playing a joke on me.”
They weren’t.
“It’s an honour and a dream to work for an NHL organization when you see the strides that have been made,” Fitzhugh says. “When I was hired, it was the best day of my life.”
Boyd was skating at a rink in the Seattle suburbs the year before last when he nearly bumped into Leiweke, who was also out for a public skate.
“He was flying around the rink and I made a point to catch up to him,” Leiweke says.
Leiweke chatted him up, handed over a business card and invited him for a coffee at – of course – a Starbucks.
“It’s not me you want to hire,” Boyd said then. “It’s my sister.”
A couple of weeks later, all three met for coffee and Leiweke was impressed.
“My immediate reaction was, ‘Wow!’” he says.
Kendall has a master’s degree from the Yale School of Management and a bachelor’s in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech. Her brother has a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth and a master’s in education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Their dad, Joel Boyd, is the physician for the NHL’s Wild. In 1998, he became the first Black physician for the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. That was the first year NHL players participated.
When the Seattle Kraken begin play next season, Everett Fitzhugh will be the NHL’s first Black full-time play-by-play announcer
Jane Gershovich/Jane Gershovich/The Globe and Mail
Kendall played one year of organized hockey as she grew up, and was the captain of a club team at Yale. Kyle played minor hockey in his youth and also played for a club team at Dartmouth.
“I was genuinely aware at a young age that it was rare to find people like me in this game,” he says. “I would look at the other major sports and yearn for that same culture. Usually, I was the only Black player on the team.
“The reality is that for those that do play, it won’t be in a critical mass. When that is the case, you feel different from everyone else.”
To reach the most diverse group of people possible, Kyle says the Kraken is building its practice facility in the densest part of Seattle in an area where there are no other rinks.
“It wouldn’t be of benefit to have a building with three sheets of ice in the suburbs,” he says. “It is important that we go to places where we can interface with the community, with neighbourhoods, schools and Boys and Girls Clubs.
“We want to get balls and sticks out to those groups and then think about the pathways for them to get to our facilities. We are in an exciting and amazing space to grow our own programs.”
Leiweke has a long history in pro sports. He is the former CEO of the Seattle Seahawks, was the president of the expansion Minnesota Wild, served as the acting president of the Portland Trail Blazers, was the CEO and minority owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the chief operating officer of the NFL. His older brother Tim used to run Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
“Seattle is a little different from other places,” he says. “You go back 100 years and it was kind of the last stop on the road. People here are definitely pioneers at heart.
“I understand the fans’ sensibility and the social conscience here.”
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
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