New York – The Sports and Culture Symposium of Asian Insular and Island of the Pacific took place on May 7 during the AAPI month with the leaders of the League, the athletes and the chiefs of culture gathering to celebrate diversity and inclusion.
The summit included representatives of the Olympic and Paralympic Committee of NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Mike Yam from NFL Network and Randip Janda, the first commentator on the NHL full -time color, A LED Tashands.
“What I liked (the conference) is that we are able to tell our stories and our paths and everyone’s path in this room was different,” said Janda, analyst covering the Vancouver Canucks. “I think the biggest point to remember was to be my authentic self. When I joined the Hockey Broadcasting community, I was not comfortable bringing my culture or which I was in the fore. I felt like I wanted to confirm or install a mold. It is not who I am. My biggest point to remember.”
The conference of the conference was “forward”, something Janda and all the others who participated did and continue to do.
“There was a moment, I think I was 8 or 10 years old when I looked Pavel bureI looked Mario Lemieux And at one point, I realized: “They don’t look like me” and “their name does not look like mine,” said Janda. “And I found myself at the same time getting a hockey card from Robin Bawa and I remember asking my parents:” This guy looks like us. Does this name of the Sud-Asia or Punjabi? “And my parents said:” Yes, he is in fact British Columbia “… Seeing a player like this representing his culture, his history in the big leagues, it was a great moment for me.”
Janda welcomed “Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition” in the past nine years. He said he was not trying to be a model or inspiration, but he came with the territory.
“When I started at the” hockey evening in Canada: Punjabi “, I just wanted to go well,” he said. “I did not think of a lasting impact or of inspiring others because it was more:” Hey, I have to settle in this area and show that I can do the job. But while we are starting to become a little more popular, when we started to climb our names and to say our program in the hockey culture, I started to do more young DM? ‘”
There was also an executive panel with the leaders of finance and investments of the NFL, NBA and MLS and a panel of athletes with ice hockey players in the United States Jen Lee and Ben Musselman.
Lee is a triple paralympic gold medalist (2014, ’18, ’22) and a defender of adaptive sports who mentors young disabled athletes. The 38-year-old goalkeeper born in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up in San Francisco, served in the American army before losing his left leg over the knee in a 2009 motorcycle accident. This led him to try Hockey Sled by Operation Comfort, an organization supporting the injured service.