The Charlotte Checkers hosted Hispanic Heritage Night earlier this season – an opportunity to celebrate Hispanic culture and introduce new people to the sport of hockey.
It was also an evening that hit close to home for a member of the Charlotte bench.
Gus Channels is in his third season as an assistant athletic trainer for the Checkers. The son of Puerto Rican parents, he grew up in the Washington, DC area and was drawn to hockey at an early age – albeit in a unique way.
“The Caps were starting to get big and so I kind of got stuck with that,” Canals said. “I also remember when I was younger, watching a show on the Disney Channel and Mickey was playing hockey, so I got a hockey jersey with the characters on it – that’s how I got into hockey.”
What started as an introduction through cartoons quickly became an athletic journey for Canals.
“I grew up playing roller hockey when I was really young, probably about 3 or 4 years old,” he said. “Then I switched to hockey in high school and I’ve been playing ever since.”
As he became more immersed in the sport, Canals no longer noticed much of the Latin American representation on the ice.
“There were superstars like Ovechkin and guys like that who watched the Caps grow up,” he said of players he looked up to. “But when it comes to players with a background like me, I didn’t really know many.”
Canals would continue playing hockey for two years after college before switching his focus to school. After earning his master’s degree from Shenandoah University in Virginia, he got his first job with the Lindenwood University hockey team before joining the Checkers.
2023.
As his journey through hockey has taken him from the player side to the staff side, he has seen Hispanic representation rise.
“I know that the IIHF has started to do a lot more with the Caribbean countries,” Canals said. “There was a point when I was younger when I was contacted to play for Puerto Rico. I didn’t just do that because there wasn’t really much going on. Now they have a real team playing out of Chicago.”
Canals looks at Checkers’ Hispanic Heritage Night and sees the impact it can have on someone like his younger self.
“I would have loved it,” he said. “I know there are all these baseball players, soccer players, boxers and things like that coming from Puerto Rico, so it’s great to see the sport expanding a little bit more and seeing players from different backgrounds. I know it would have helped me a lot more to play and take different paths, to go faster and pick it up a little earlier.”
Canals made his way into professional hockey by following his passion for athletic training, and he sits on the bench every game with his medical kit adorned with a Puerto Rican flag patch to honor his heritage and set an example for anyone watching and looking for someone who looks like them.
“I love the sport,” Canals said. “It’s cool to be an influential aspect of something like that. A few times I’ve worked in Florida and had people banging on the glass and pointing at the flag excitedly.”
#Spanish #heritage #celebration #special #evening #Checkers #assistant #coach