Arshdeep Bains of Surrey, B.C., went from being undrafted to becoming an AHL All-Star Game MVP and, most recently, one of four Punjabi NHL players. Adam Proteau reacts.
Arshdeep Bains of Surrey, B.C., went from being undrafted to becoming an AHL All-Star Game MVP and, most recently, one of four Punjabi NHL players. Adam Proteau reacts.
On Tuesday night in Vancouver, one of the best stories of the current NHL season continued to unfold when rookie Arshdeep Bains made his NHL debut for the Canucks.
The 23-year-old forward from Surrey, B.C., never got drafted by an NHL team. But after a dynamic major junior career with the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels, he slowly proved his worth as a professional player. After spending all of last season and this season playing with the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks, including winning AHL All-Star Game MVP honors earlier this month, he got his shot at The Show Tuesday. He made the most of it, logging 13:21 of ice time against the Colorado Avalanche.
Bains, the fourth Punjabi player to play in the NHL, certainly is an inspiration to players across the hockey spectrum. He didn’t have many people who resemble him as NHL idols to look up to, but you can rest assured there are kids of South Asian descent who will head out to ice rinks today, tomorrow and all the way down the line and believe in themselves because they have an example to try and follow. Even if they never make it to hockey’s top league, they will enjoy their playing experience and pass it along to future generations. That’s great for hockey and great for the world in general.
Grassroots participation that benefits everyone is going to lead to more and more players from all sorts of different backgrounds. The phrase “hockey is for everyone” is catchy, but we need to see tacit examples to really drive home the point. In that respect, Bains is now in an exclusive club of athletes, but when it all comes down to it, he’s already a hero. His feel-good story has really only just begun.
Like the three Punjabi NHL players before him – Jujhar Khaira, who has 337 games of experience with the Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks – Bains is now an athlete who’s going to mean something special to a lot of people. No matter how many NHL games he plays, Bains has climbed a mountain very few ever climb. He’s also an inspiration to every player who never gets picked in an NHL draft. Hard work and determination have paid off for him, and nobody can take away his achievement this week.
Bains’ success is the Canucks’ gain, but in the macro sense, it is also the gain of the sport and the country Bains was raised in. Canada and the Canucks have much to be proud of today and every day, and that includes Bains. He’s a pioneer of his craft, and when the history books for his era are written, Bains is going to figure in prominently as someone who carved out a path for those who often were denied opportunities simply because of the color of their skin.
We all can applaud him for that and for making hockey better in the process.