Home / News / Joel Ward will return to DC to drop ceremonial first puck for Capitals’ Black History Night

Joel Ward will return to DC to drop ceremonial first puck for Capitals’ Black History Night

By Donya Abramo and Ian Oland

 0 Comment

February 3, 2020 12:34 am

The Washington Capitals announced over the weekend that fan-favorite Joel Ward will return to Capital One Arena on February 23rd for the Capitals-Penguins game. Wardo will take part in the ceremonial puck drop for Black History Night.

The Capitals will “honor diversity in hockey with tributes throughout the game.”

Video

Ward played a total of 726 games in his NHL career for the Nashville Predators, Capitals, and San Jose Sharks, scoring 133 goals and 177 assists. He set his career-high during the 2013-14 season in both goals and assists, with 24 and 25 respectively. Ward also scored arguably one of the most important playoff goals in Capitals history — prior to the 2018 Cup win — when he recorded the Game Seven overtime game-winning tally that propelled the Caps past the defending champion Boston Bruins in 2012.

Ward endured racism on social media after scoring the big goal and it became a national story.

“Jeff Halpern came up to me and tried to give me a heads up of saying ‘if there’s anything you need, I’ve got your back. There’s been a few [tweets] going out since you scored from Bruins fans. Racial slurs,’” Ward recounted in an interview in 2012. “Once I got home, I took a look online and saw a few tweets with some pretty harsh words for sure that was unexpected. The next day I woke up it had blown up.

“For me, personally, I was surprised. A little shocked. Deep down inside, I’m a black player playing a white man’s game. I kind of know what I’ve signed up for playing hockey,” Ward said. “I’ve been through a few incidents when I was younger. I know it’s always going to be there so I wasn’t too surprised. I think for me, a lot of my teammates were more surprised than I was. The positive out of it is that I want them to know that they can see the differences and the aspect of what happened. I end up scoring a goal, that everybody else was trying to do, and somehow it became a negative spin because of the color of my skin. A lot of guys, it was an eye-opener, I’m sure, to show that it does happen. This is part of the struggles of being a black guy growing up and it’s unfortunate to see that it still goes on.”

Ward was also a beloved teammate in Washington and also got locked in a bathroom stall that one time in Dallas.

Ward has not played since he finished out the 2017-18 season with the San Jose Sharks. In February 2019, Ward said he considered himself retired while in Charlottetown for UPEI Men’s Hockey Alumni Day, but still hoped he’d get another chance to play professional hockey.

Despite no longer living in the area, Ward continues to root for many of the local teams including the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Nationals. Ward live-tweeted during the Nationals’ Game Seven, World Series-clinching win against the Houston Astros.

Beyond Ward participating in the ceremonial faceoff, the Capitals will be taking part in several initiatives as part of Hockey is for Everyone month.

On Saturday, defensemen Nick Jensen and Jonas Siegenthaler joined the Fort DuPont Cannons for practice. On February 4th, the Capitals and EverFi will be hosting a panel for local students on STEM in hockey at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. And finally, on February 7th, Nicklas Backstrom and Radko Gudas will take part in the Dreams of Kids skate, the 10th consecutive season that the Capitals have hosted the event.

, , ,