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A Queen Among Kings: The First South Asian Woman in the NHL by Varun Joshi
The hockey world has tried its best to state that hockey is for everyone. But saying it doesn’t make it so. People like Aisha Visram are the ones that are making hockey for everyone.
Out of the ‘Big Four’ professional men’s sports organizations in North America; the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL), the NHL is the smallest, least profitable, and least diverse. The NHL is 93% White, with the other 7% identifying as varying ethnicities. There’s a little over 700 hundred players currently signed to the NHL, and there is one active Brown player, Jujhar Khaira, a centre for the Chicago Blackhawks. When I say ‘Brown’, I’m referring to anyone with heritage from the Indian subcontinent. This entails familial ties to South Asians from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, but also to the diaspora in Africa, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world. After Robin Bawa and Manny Malhotra, Khaira is the third player of Punjabi descent to play in the NHL.
Recently, the hockey world encountered incidents that reveal the presence of racism in the sport. Two Black players, Jordan Subban of the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays and Boko Imama of the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, were on the receiving end of racist actions on ice by opposing players Jacob Panetta and Krystof Hrabik, respectively. Among the 710 players currently signed to contracts in the NHL, there are:
36 players that have African heritage
6 active players of Indigenous heritage
5 players with Japanese heritage
4 players with Latino heritage
4 players with Middle Eastern heritage
4 players with Filipino heritage
I’m highlighting these statistics to reiterate something that is obvious, but easy to forget, that hockey is overwhelmingly a white sport. This article isn’t about the lack of diversity in hockey. It’s trying to provide a new lens to appreciate the significance of what an athletic trainer, by the name of Aisha Visram, accomplished last month. On Thursday January 13th, the Los Angeles (LA) Kings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-2 and made history. Visram is the second woman to ever work behind an NHL bench behind the Montreal Canadiens Jodi van Rees in 2002, and the first woman of South Asian heritage to work behind an NHL bench. Amidst COVID-19 related staff shortages, Aisha, the head athletic trainer of the LA Kings AHL affiliate, was called up. Prior to Aisha’s call up on January 13th, the NHL remained the only of the four professional men’s sports leagues to not have a woman work as a part of a full-time coaching team and staff.
Aisha was kind enough to correspond with me to detail her journey, which started with her undergraduate degree in Human Kinetics at the University of Guelph. From there, she combined her passion for sports and medicine in sports science and pursued an Advanced Certificate in Athletic Therapy from Mount Royal University in Alberta, before completing her Masters in Exercise Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Following her education, Aisha worked as an assistant athletic trainer for St. Lawrence University women’s hockey team for one year and with their men’s hockey team for 4 years. In 2018 Aisha received an offer to work in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) and became the first ever woman of Indo-African heritage to work as a head athletic trainer and strength coach for the Adirondack Thunder between 2017-2020. After working in the ECHL, Aisha joined the American Hockey League’s (AHL) Ontario Reign, the AHL affiliate for the LA Kings, as an assistant athletic trainer in January of 2021 before moving up to a head athletic trainer in August. Finally, on January 13th, Aisha made her NHL debut as a member of the training staff for the Kings. Aisha worked two games due to the staffing issues pertaining to COVID-19 and has resumed her duties in the AHL as the Ontario Reign’s head athletic trainer.
Aisha followed in the footsteps of other women by seizing opportunities in the male dominated world of hockey. Being the first woman to work behind an NHL bench in 20 years is important but, as Visram stated on her Instagram page, she is not the first. I want to be clear about Aisha Visram’s story; she, just like any individual striving to succeed in the hockey world, has had to put in countless hours of work in multiple levels and leagues. Nonetheless, let’s acknowledge the barrier she has broken for Brown women since this space has not always been accessible for Brown people, and as evidenced by the lack of women working in the NHL. Being Brown means being hyper visible in North American society, especially in heavily white spaces like hockey. Toronto born Visram grew up playing hockey with her siblings and supporting the local Toronto Maple Leafs, while her parents, both pharmacists, migrated from Tanzania and have Indian heritage. Aisha’s parents’, Shafin and Yasmin, grew up in an environment where cricket and soccer were the ‘go to’ sports, yet they nurtured their children’s passion for hockey while immersing themselves in the sport.
As an Indo-Canadian who grew up playing recreational ice hockey, I can affirm that it is not an accessible sport for a variety of reasons. Relative to almost every other sport, hockey has a pricey entry point. The lack of diversity can make it difficult for immigrant parents to integrate and form meaningful bonds with the hockey community as they watch their children play, especially when taking into consideration the cultural and linguistic barriers that might arise.
Nothing, including hockey, exists in a vacuum and we should consider why hockey has little diversity. Let’s celebrate Visram working in the NHL, as it affirms something that the hockey world is working towards but hasn’t quite reached. The NHL states that hockey is for everyone. Robin Bawa, Manny Malhotra, Jujhar Kaira, and now Aisha Visram are the ones who make hockey for everyone. Let’s continue to make hockey for everyone and celebrate diversity in a world where it’s easy to forget that not every sporting space is a multicultural mosaic. From a forward that sometimes played centre and sometimes played wing, to an athletic trainer for the 2 time Stanley Cup Champions the LA Kings, congratulations on working in the NHL Aisha!
Credits
Toronto born and Brampton raised, Varun Joshi is a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph and is working to be the first Punjabi doctoral graduate in their Sociology & Anthropology Department. Varun researches the experiences of male inmates who have worked in a prison abattoir in Ontario. When he’s not screaming at the TV because his Ottawa Senators are losing, Varun loves to hang with his 100 pound goldendoodle Kimba.