Becoming a professional hockey player didn't come easy for former NHL forwards Chris Stewart and Wayne Simmonds, but they beat the odds to make it to the show.
Hockey is not a cheap sport to play — from equipment to travel to league fees, it gets quite expensive to participate and even more so to excel.
For two two inner-city Black kids from the Toronto area, becoming a professional hockey player seemed like an impossible dream.
“I remember one year at AAA tryouts, the coaches wanted to speak to my parents and I remember not going upstairs with them because I knew we couldn’t afford it,” former NHL forward Wayne Simmonds recalled. “I wasn’t going to go there and push my parents into a situation where they couldn’t say no to me.”
Simmonds and former Colorado Avalanche forward Chris Stewart were featured in the Aug. 2, 2010 issue of The Hockey News for their perseverance and beating the odds to make it in the NHL.
At one point, Stewart quit hockey for two years. But as fate would have it, the 6-foot-2 ended up back on skates from the encouragement of his brother, Anthony, who also played in the League.
Stewart was drafted in the first round (18th overall) of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft by the Avalanche. He played 166 games for Colorado and earned 113 points as a bottom six forward.
Read more about their journeys and what was going on in the NHL off-season prior to the 2010-11 season.
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