notyourpapashockey - Tumblr blog

notyourpapashockey · 4 years

Text

Hispanic Heritage Month Fan Highlight: Elan Lozano

NOTE FROM NOT YOUR PAPA’S HOCKEY: SOME PEOPLE DECLINED TO SHARE LAST NAMES, TWITTER HANDLES AND/OR PERSONAL PICTURES. WE RESPECT THEIR RIGHT TO PRIVACY, AND WE HOPE OUR READERS DO AS WELL. WE HAVE NOT EDITED ANSWERS ASIDE FROM SLIGHT SPELLING ERRORS AND ADDED CLARIFICATION.

Not Your Papa’s (NYP): Tell me a little about yourself - name, pronouns, where you're from, fun fact if you want, etc!

Elan (E): My name is Elan Lozano, I am a 29 year old Mexican-American male from Saint Paul, Minnesota. I am not only an extremely huge hockey fan, but I am a musician as well. I play the drums, a little bit of guitar and work at a music shop as well. I have a hockey jersey collection that is currently up to 20, but most likely will be more by the time this article will come out.

NYP: Who is your team (or teams)?

E: Minnesota Wild all the way!

NYP: Who is your favorite player and why?

E: Matt Dumba, no question. He’s the definition of a true leader in my opinion. He is always the first guy to help the younger guys get acclimated to the team. He is always there to pick up his teammates when they are hurt and the first to stick up for his teammates in a scrum or a fight. He is also finally getting recognized for it with his King Clancy Award this year, but he is an extremely huge community leader. He is always donating his time to multiple programs, charities and even strangers since the first day he arrived in Minnesota. He has done a ton of work with the ACES program and it is amazing to see. He has also donated money to help rebuild Minneapolis and for Black Lives Matter. It still boggles my mind that he has not been considered an option as a potential team captain when Mikko Koivu retires.

As a player, when he is on, the Wild are on as well. He’s a player that very much can dictate where the team can go. Plus, he has one of the best one timers I have ever seen. He has an absolute bomb of a slapshot! I honestly think if he did not get hurt halfway through last season, we would be talking about Matt Dumba across the league a lot more as one of the top offensive defenseman in the NHL. I have all the confidence that he will be able to turn back around and become the 20-30 goal scorer he looked like he was going to be before he was injured.

NYP: How long have you been a hockey fan and how did you get into hockey?

E: For as long as I can remember. I would guess around 6 or 7, so 22 or 23 years. All I remember was seeing The Mighty Ducks as a kid and being hooked! I mean, it was a movie that was filmed in my hometown. It was like it was meant to be. As far as NHL hockey, it easily has to be the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals. I just remember Dominik Hasek being an absolute madman in the net and making some of the craziest saves I have ever seen. Still, to this day, it amazes me how he made some of the saves he did. In my opinion, Dominik Hasek in his prime was the best goaltender to ever play the game. He almost single handedly won the Sabers a Cup. Shoutout to The Dominator. Still is one of my favorite players of all time.

NYP: What do you like the most about hockey?

E: This is [a] tough question. I do not know if I can pick just one, but one of the things I love most about the sport is the fact that an underdog can win on any given night, and I do not think you can say that about any other sport really. Especially, in the playoffs. How many other sports leagues can say that an 8th seed has a shot at winning their league’s championship if they are able to make the playoffs and get hot at the right time? Not many, if any at all. The feeling of anything can happen is just pure amazing.

Another thing I love about the sport is the passion of anyone who is involved or surrounded by the game itself. The players, the announcers, the writers and the fans. We all live and die with our teams. The players leave it all out on the ice. The fact that a player can get as big of a cheer for blocking a shot as they can for scoring a goal tells you all you need to know about the passion the players and the fans have for the game and for each other.

NYP: How has being Hispanic/Latinx in a white-male centric fan community affected your relationship with the sport?

E: My experience with the sport has been positive for the most part, but there are moments where things have not been so positive. I remember growing up and saying my favorite sport is hockey. You would have kids make comments like, “But, you’re Mexican.” I never took those kids as meaning anything hurtful by it. Most of the time, they thought it was cool that I was Mexican and liked hockey, but I learned quickly at a very young age that there was not a lot of Latinx representation in the sport and that has always disappointed me.

It is growing. Slowly, but it is growing. I always looked up to Scott Gomez and would do reports in school on him as much as I could because he was an inspiration to me. It is amazing to see that we have a Latinx GM for the Minnesota Wild in Bill Guerin. It is amazing to see Alex Meruelo as the first Latinx owner in the NHL. I cannot tell you how exciting it was to see Auston Matthews go First Overall in the NHL Draft. There was such a high sense of pride for me seeing a Latinx player go first overall and especially to arguably the biggest hockey market in the world AND be their star player.

The more negative experiences I have had have more come from looks or getting the feeling someone is talking about you because you are different. When I have been at the local bars surrounding Xcel Energy Center grabbing food and beer before a game, there are a few times I will get looks or get the feeling someone has been talking about me. It has happened at the arena a few times as well. I never let it bother me much because I am not going to allow someone to ruin my good time and waste the hard earned money I spent on my ticket to the game, but at the same time, I am human.

I can only deal with so much before I want to say something. I usually never do because, for one, I am usually alone and two, I am a Person of Color by myself at a hockey game. I would like to think a majority of the fans would have my back in helping defend me against racism, but I always get the feeling security or the cops at the arena would take the other person’s side if I did ever speak up. The worst part is I am a Season Ticket Holder and I still feel like very few people would have my back to support me.

NYP: What do you wish you could see from teams or players when it comes to Hispanic Heritage - especially teams in areas with large Hispanic/Latinx populations?

E: Simple. Outreach, outreach, outreach. Most of the time, the teams will go to the suburbs of the city they play in, but where the outreach is needed most is usually a lot closer to the arenas these teams play in. It would be as simple as taking the time to go to a local rec center and play some floor hockey in the gym with the kids. If you did that once a week or even once a month, you would get so many more eyes on the sport and get kids interested at a much younger age.

Outreach is the first step. The second would have to be donating not only time, but money and/or gear. The game is extremely expensive. From my personal experience, my mom did not have the money to get me the gear I needed to play hockey when I was younger. A few years ago, I was able to get myself skates and a helmet and started to trying to learn how to skate on my own. There was no way my single mom could have afforded to buy the gear and ice time I would have needed to be able to play.

NYP: In relation to the question above, what would you like to see your favorite team, specifically, do for Hispanic/Latinx fans?

E: I would give the two same answers as before, but I will specify it more to my city and to the Minnesota Wild. I live on the West Side of Saint Paul, which has a very large Latinx population, more specifically, Mexican and Mexican-American. I live literally 5 minutes from the Xcel Energy Center and in the near 20 years of the team’s existence, there has been no or hardly any outreach to this side of town. We could not live any closer to not only the arena, but to the practice facilities as well. There is no excuse the team has to not have more of an outreach in our neighborhood. We have a new rec center in the area, an indoor ice rink and the rec center also makes two outdoor rinks every year. There are plenty of opportunities for the Wild to outreach to the neighborhood I live in, but I have seen more outreach in the suburbs who are 30 to 45 minutes away from the arena. Even the Minnesota Twins rebuilt the baseball fields that are attached to the rec center and they are based out of Minneapolis, not Saint Paul like the Minnesota Wild are. It is extremely disappointing.

NYP: What is your favorite thing a team or player has done for Hispanic Heritage?

E: It almost feels disappointing that this is my answer because I feel like it should be something on a bigger scale to talk about, but it has to be an interview/YouTube video that SportsNet’s Donnovan Bennett did with Auston Matthews about his Latinx heritage that was released back in February this year. It was great to hear him talk about his family and his culture. It shows where he comes from. Sadly, the video has under 100,000 views at the time of me writing this. It is crazy to me that the Leafs, or the NHL for that matter, did not promote this more for one of its Superstars players in the league.

[Note from NYPH: the video has since surpassed 100k views but barely, it sits at 100,684 as of Sept. 23, 2020.]

NYP: Tell me about a favorite hockey memory.

E: Hands down, my favorite hockey moment is Andrew Brunette’s OT Game 7 winner against the Colorado Avalanche in 2003. I was 12 and I remember it was one of the rare times my mom let me stay up late to let me watch the game. No matter how late it could have gone, she was going to let me stay up and watch the entire game. She knew what it meant to me. Quick shoutout to my amazing mom for always being supportive of my passion for the sport of hockey. My mom even let me watch the game on the big TV in the living room.

I remember Brunette getting a break to the net and when he scored, it is a feeling I will never forget. I just remember jumping up and down, screaming and crying out of pure joy. The emotions came over me. To this day, whenever I see this goal, I get a chill down my spine. No one gave us a chance and we took down the mighty Avalanche. We were the underdog, and we fought so hard to get a chance. To get respect. That is why I connect with the game so much. I am that person in my everyday life. I have to fight for every inch and you have to do that exact same thing in hockey.

NYP: What is something you wish people knew as a Hispanic/Latinx hockey fan?

E: I think from a cultural standpoint, we have so much to offer to the game to make it better. We are passionate. We love hard! We dive headfirst into the things we love. We will fight, scratch, claw and defend our team to no end. Imagine having more players with that fire and passion on a team or in a front office. We have so much to offer the sport. We just need the opportunities to do so.

You can find Elan on Twitter: @MapexDrummer26.

#hispanic heritage month #hispanic #hhm #hockey #matt dumba #auston matthews #minnesota wild #latina #latinx #latino #interview #fan interview

1 note · View note

notyourpapashockey · 4 years

Text

Warm Weather Wednesday: Respect on Roman Josi's Name

During the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals, I remember one broadcaster said something along the lines of, “The most underrated defenseman most likely plays for the Nashville Predators.”

I don’t remember who said it, but the Predators have had tremendous success in producing good defensemen. This remark could have been in reference to Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis or P.K. Subban (at the time). Just Monday, the final 2020 NHL Awards were announced including the James Norris Memorial Trophy which is given "to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position," according to the NHL.

Josi won in voting by more than 200 points over John Carlson of the Washington Capitals.

Most of the naysayers to Josi’s win, the first Norris win for a Predators player and first time for a Swiss player, were Caps fans upset Carlson did not win. Carlson led the league in points at the beginning of the season for a bit, and finished the shortened season with 75 points in 69 games. Josi led the Predators in points this season with 65 in 69 games. But the award is not given to the defenseman with the most points, it is given to the best all-around defender and some people get offensive-defenseman confused with this.

If you want a good read on why John Carlson was not awarded the Norris, Russian Machine Never Breaks has you covered. I, on the other hand, am going to tell you why Josi was overlooked and why he should not have been.

Josi is a product of Shea Weber (the first captain of the Preds drafted by the Preds, Josi’s NHL mentor/D-partner and arguably the best captain in franchise history) and European-style hockey. Weber is smart and physical on the ice and European-style hockey is very fast, and Josi has translated this into his play but only recently been truly physical on the ice.

As I said in our NHL Award predictions on Monday, “the Caps aren’t the John Carlson Show.” This just means Carlson is not the star player of the Caps and does not have the pressure a star or captain would. Now, I do not think the Predators are the “Roman Josi Show,” I do think Josi, obviously has more responsibilities than Carlson as captain. There is an obligation to the team in both instances, but the captain is the one with the most responsibility on and off the ice and in the locker room.

Josi carried the team on his back during the 2019-20 season. He produced the most points on the team and did the best he could do with coaching changes and a depleted, tired team. During the 2019 off-season, the Predators traded P.K. Subban to the New Jersey Devils for draft picks and two guys who would remain with the Milwaukee Admirals, the Predators’ AHL affiliate. So there was no immediate return. P.K.’s spot was filled by Dante Fabbro, a rookie from British Columbia, but a rookie cannot pull the same weight as a veteran player like P.K. pulled.

About midway through the season, it was clear to me (as someone who follows the Caps and Preds closely) Josi should win the Norris. However, many are still stumped and feel as though Carlson was slighted.

Let’s get this out of the way before we go any further: defensemen do not exist to get points; they exist to stop points. Arguing a player is good because he scores points and is a defenseman is a pointless argument (I’m looking at Tony DeAngelo fans here). A well-rounded defender, yes, will get points but will first be good at their position - blocking shots, wearing forwards down, being the first line of defense before the goaltender, etc.

Carlson and Josi have nearly the same type of stats, when it comes down to it. So why are more people upset over Carlson losing out than Josi winning?

When you compare social media accounts, the Caps’ followings outnumber the Preds’. On Facebook, the Caps have 796K likes, and the Preds have 408K. On Instagram, the Caps have 832K which is a little over double the Preds’ 408K followers. Twitter is the only one where the gap is not as big but still noticeable - Caps with 776.1K and Preds with 611.2K.

The Caps have a recent Cup win (2018), but the Preds also have a recent Cup Finals run (2017). The Caps are older by around 20 years, but a big social media presence has only been a recent requirement for both teams. It comes down to exposure.

In short, more people are upset because the Capitals have a bigger following than the Predators.

I think the Preds playing in the Winter Classic against the Dallas Stars in front of one of the largest NHL outdoor game crowds is a step in the right direction. But when you have more followers, you have more individual marketers. People will talk about their teams and get others interested. Nashville suffers in the fact it is a hot-market team.

In Tennessee, the Predators did not get as much recognition statewide until 2017, and it is still nearly impossible to find any type of game on television because they were all drowned out by college football. If hockey is to thrive in the south, it needs to be more accessible. You have guys like Roman Josi, who if was on a team with the exposure like the Capitals, would have so many people willing to go to bat for him on why he deserved the Norris.

More exposure means more fans and more respect on Roman Josi’s name, period.

#www #warm weather wednesday #nhl #nhl awards #western conference #roman josi #josi #roman #nashville predators #predators #preds #john carlson #carlson #washington capitals #caps

0 notes