Alfredo: (Soft Clouds by ProdbyMX plays) Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Puck Talk podcast, I’m your host Alfredo Menjivar, and this week I will be using the song Soft Clouds by ProdbyMX.
That is P, R, O, D, B, Y, M, X on YouTube. Go check him out. He’s one of my best friends, too. Now, today we are on location andwhere we are let me tell you, we are in the bathroom of my garage, because why not? You know, so last week I had talked about Ryan Getzlaf on his retirement and had said that I was going to talk about the diversity of hockey and that’s what we’re doing this week today.
This week we will be talking about the diversity of hockey and what parts of the world hockey has touched. So what I’m seeing here or see all those loud noises outside, (STUFF OUTSIDE FLYING AROUND BY WIND) it is so windy outside that just last week we were dying in the heat.
In this, we were freezing. It’s windy. The wind is blowing us off our feet damn. There it is again. Anyway, so as I’m looking here, I’m waiting on the NTIH like the which is where you can find all the hockey team, the national hockey team, the national teams around the world.
So here in this continent which is the Americas, North, Central, South, and the Caribbean. We have Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the United States.
There are some of them, some other teams in other provinces too the Falkland Islands, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. I don’t I don’t understand the Nova Scotia, Ontario part. I, I don’t get that at all.
Anyway, yeah. So Hockey has touched so many places around the world and it’s reached places that you wouldn’t even think. I found a video on YouTube that was posted 10 years ago in northern El Salvador.
I don’t remember what the department was called, but they turned a chicken coop into a roller hockey rink, of course, an ice hockey. In fact, even if El Salvador had a hockey team, I don’t think they would do their, their soccer team is barely any good, to be honest.
I love my “Selecta” but those guys got to get better. But yeah. Anyways, back to the hockey. Now, these teams here are actually not bad. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and so on. They are pretty good.
They are really, really good, actually, Mexico. And what I’ve seen from them, they have won just one gold medal and they are Amerigol Latam gold or excuse me, the Amerigol Latam Cup will be coming soon and I would watch it, but I have to pay for the the channels to watch it.
So, yeah. Where has Hockey touched. Well, hockey, of course, not only touched here, but even some parts in Africa as well. What I’m seeing here is just a just a handful of countries, not too many, but it’s getting it’s growing.
There’s Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, and Tunisia, Tunisia, I don’t know, perhaps and Kenya was I think I believe was one of the first hockey teams in in that continent of Africa to actually and I’ve seen so many videos and stories on their players and man. It’s beautiful.
Now, I believe, of course, hockey is the greatest game in the world, not being biased from an unbiased point of view, but mainly because there’s so much intensity, so much thrill and excitement.
The electricity in the playoffs, too, you know, it’s something that a lot of the other sports don’t have and all the other sports, of course. I watch the rest of them baseball, soccer, football, basketball.
But none of them can compete to the electricity of ice hockey. And I’m sure that’s probably what caught a lot of the eyes of these countries to where else?
We’re going to two parts of the Pacific here or Asia and the Pacific, because there’s quite a bit there are some countries here that are included, kind of like in FIFA, too. They included some countries in Asia, like here.
They have Australia, Bahrain, China, Chinese. I cant read some of these to be honest . I’m sorry. Hockey has said so many places and has touched so much so many hearts, and I love it and I’m really happy that hockey is really growing in the Latino countries, too.
And I’m seeing a whole lot more Latino hockey players, too. Of course, me bias about that because I am Latino. But, you know, it’s it’s amazing to see and moving onto is the diversity of hockey or the diversity in the NHL itself.
The NHL, they had their fair share of diversity. Actually, to be honest, they have plenty of African African players, plenty of them there is at it here.
There’s no showing how many players or an exact number because there’s still plenty of them and there’s still plenty of players playing to this day, now just pick out the ones that are currently playing.
There’s PK Subban, Wayne Simmons, Kyle Okposo and Seth Jones and a whole bunch other. I can’t go through all of them. There’s so many. And going to the other side, to the Asians and Latinos, there are plenty of them.
There are a lot I’m sure the most remembered ones would be Paul Kariya And that’s pretty much yeah, that’s a all I know. But there is quite a bit here. I remember, to be honest, who was it I believe, as Devin Setoguchi, remember him?
Actually, he is, where did he go? Here he is so he played for the Kings, San Jose Sharks, Minnesota, Winnipeg and Calgary. So he yeah, he’s but he’s from Canada to you know, he actually only played like one season in L.A., too.
Actually, it wasn’t too bad. The only play I really remember from him was when a puck hit him in the in his ear. And my thought I was like man again I feel really bad.
And the natives and by natives, I mean, like native indigenous there, of course, I’m sure other people, not a lot of people knew this, but Carey Price is actually is actually a native, is a got is an indigenous descent.
I can’t read what this is actually like or carrier that is from I guess from British Columbia is what I’m seeing here. There’s quite a bit here. Even Scotty Gomez, I’m looking right here in Wikipedia. And these guys, they got Gomez,
it’s got to Gomez. He’s Mexican-American he’s got some Colombian to, of course, and he buys about a little bit about this guy, Bill Geurin, who was a Nicaraguan descent.
I’m biased about him because he’s Central American, too. And there’s not a lot of that. A lot of us, you know, there, you know, Central America. So I’m that’s why he’s one of my favorite ones. And of course, I would be pretty biased.
And Alec Martinez, he’s not Latino. There’s a difference between Latino and Hispanic Latinos like geographic location. Hispanic is based on language. But Alec Martinez, he is of Spanish descent and of course, Max Pacioretty, he’s Mexican-American.
He’s half Mexican. Actually, Matt Nieto, who is playing for the Colorado Avalance right now, actually, he is from Long Beach. He’s from my home town of Long Beach. And he’s he’s a Mexican-American as well.
And there is Al Montoya, who’s Cuban-American. Actually, I don’t even know what happened to him. He’s been gone for a while. Now, Here’s what I really want to get at for the NHL here.
They should at least they should have each player sorry. They should have each team, just one player from each different part of the world, maybe not from each of them for the world, world, maybe not from each of them for the world, different ethnicities, ethnicities, not Canadian, American, not, you know, Slovakian or Russian.
You know, they got a there was some flavor in them in it. It’s going to benefit them in a way, I’m sure, because it’s going to catch The eye of the kids. Did you always want to catch either the kids like, oh, man, I didn’t say this guy.
He’s from he’s from Nicaragua. I’m a Nicaraguan too I want to play too you know, I just think it would touch a lot of people in a lot of people like that. You know, it would be really interesting.
