After years of feeling alienated by the NHL and campaigning to diversify the game, Akim Aliu is getting one other shot at enjoying professional hockey, this time with the San Jose Sharks’ minor league affiliate.
Sharks common supervisor Mike Grier knowledgeable reporters on the league’s GM conferences in Florida on Wednesday that he provided Aliu a tryout contract with the American Hockey League’s San Jose Barracuda for the rest of the season.
The 34-year-old Aliu, who performs protection, confirmed the tryout by textual content to The Related Press, saying his flight had simply landed in California.
“It’s enormous. I’ve prided myself on at all times doing issues the proper approach morally, and by no means wavered by way of all of the darkish instances,” Aliu wrote.
“Extraordinarily blessed to get this chance.”
Aliu final performed professionally on the finish of the 2019-20 season with Litvinov HC within the Czech Republic’s prime league and completed with one purpose and two assists in six video games. He was born in Nigeria to mixed-race dad and mom after which lived in Ukraine earlier than his household ultimately settled within the Toronto suburbs, the place he picked up hockey.
Aliu is a journeyman minor leaguer who’s greatest recognized for confronting racism in hockey. He got here to prominence by making two life-altering social media posts in November 2019, which led to Invoice Peters’ abrupt resignation as coach of the Calgary Flames.
NHL participant profile picture on Calgary Flames’ Akim Aliu throughout a recreation in Calgary, Alberta on Feb. 23, 2013.
THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Larry MacDougal
Aliu revealed Peters bullied and directed racist slurs at him when the 2 have been within the minors a decade earlier. Peters resigned days later, and Aliu’s revelations led to the NHL instituting a private conduct coverage in a bid to eradicate racism in what’s historically been a white-dominated sport.
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The altercation with Peters, and being the goal of a hazing incident whereas in junior hockey, led Aliu to imagine his profession was stunted as a result of NHL groups had labeled him a troublemaker.
Aliu, who was chosen within the second spherical of the 2007 draft by Chicago, spent a majority of his 13 seasons leaping from one minor league crew to a different. He appeared in simply seven NHL video games with the Flames cut up over two seasons.
Although Aliu had not formally retired from hockey, he co-founded a players-backed Hockey Range Alliance to boost consciousness and make hockey extra accessible to minorities and underprivileged youth.
Aliu, who grew up poor, would purchase used tools and take public transit to practices and video games throughout Toronto.
Final yr, Scholastic and the publishing firm of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick launched a graphic novel highlighting Aliu’s life titled: Akim Aliu Dreamer: Rising Up Black within the World of Hockey.
Akim Aliu poses for a photograph on this undated picture. Aliu’s ebook titled “Akim Aliu Dreamer: Rising Up Black within the World of Hockey,” is due out in February and shares a journey of being a Nigerian-born youngster of mixed-race dad and mom trying to assimilate at a younger age in Ukraine and Canada.
David Leyes through AP
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