By Julien McKenzie (The Athletic)
The NHL has only seen one Black head coach in its 109-year league history, and not even for a full season. Dirk Graham, who previously broke another barrier as the league’s first Black captain, assumed the top bench job for the Chicago Blackhawks in June 1998 but lasted just 59 games before being fired with a 16-35-8 record.
If Joel Ward gets his way, he will be next. And it will be overdue.
“I think there should have been more ahead of me,” Ward told The Athletic last week. “As a player, you go through it, and then it just seems like coaching is not really an avenue for a lot of guys that play for whatever reason.”
A former NHL winger who notched 133 goals and 304 points over 11 seasons with four NHL teams, including the San Jose Sharks during their run to the 2016 Stanley Cup Final, Ward has used his platform to promote inclusivity and fight discrimination in the sport as a co-founder of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which held its second annual “Summer Fest” youth outreach event on Saturday. At the same time, Ward is busy preparing for an opportunity that few Black members of the hockey world have experienced, one that will bring the 45-year-old that much closer to his ultimate ambition.
In June, following six years as an assistant in the Vegas Golden Knights’ organization, the last three of which were spent on their NHL bench, Ward was named head coach of the American Hockey League’s Henderson Silver Knights. The 45-year-old succeeds Ryan Craig, who was promoted to the Golden Knights’ head position after the team opted not to retain late-season hire John Tortorella following their loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in the Cup Final.
Ward said it was an “honor” to be entrusted by the Golden Knights to “lead their young men and develop players” with the organization’s top minor-league affiliate, where he becomes only the second Black head coach in AHL history. (The first was Graham, who led the Springfield Falcons from 2004-06.) However, Ward doesn’t plan to stay in the AHL forever.
“At the end of the day, I’d like to coach in the National Hockey League,” he said.
As a skater, Ward’s career was far from guaranteed. He broke into the league with the Minnesota Wild during the 2006-07 season as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Prince Edward Island, a rare product of Canadian university hockey to reach the sport’s highest level. Despite spending the next year in the minors, he persevered to become a sturdy presence up front for the Nashville Predators and Washington Capitals from 2008-2015, highlighted by career highs of 24 goals and 49 points with the Capitals in 2013-14.
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