Parminder Singh: The ‘Turbanator’ of Hockey
BY AVINASH GAVAI | IAN CANADA
NOVEMBER 13, 2009

His father drove a truck and his mother worked in a bottling factory. Money was tight and small luxuries -- such as a pair of squeaky new white running shoes with the coolest blue Velcro strap Parminder Singh had ever seen -- were items to be treasured.

And guarded with your life. But by then, hockey had already taken over Singh’s life. He was nine years old and in love with a sport that was not even a sport where he came from in India. All he wanted to do was play shinny with his multi-ethnic stew of pals in a poor corner of northeast Toronto.

And all he wanted to be was like the Toronto Maple Leafs he saw on Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night. It did not matter that he had a turban on his head, when none of the Leafs did, just so long as he could pick the corners with the puck and say the magic words, “He shoots, he scores!”

“We played a lot of shinny,” Singh says. “We had no equipment, no goalies, and I had no hockey gloves, just regular gloves. I remember being with my friends one Sunday afternoon skate at John Booth Arena. I left my shoes underneath the stands. They were almost brand new. When I got back they were gone, and I couldn’t call my parents to tell them I lost my shoes, so I walked home in my skates. I was trying to hide this fact, and then they found out I lost my shoes, and they didn’t want me to go skating again.

“From there, it kind of spiralled right down to where I had no hockey career.”

It is 19 years later. Singh is wearing polished black dress shoes and pinstriped grey flannel pants, sitting in a Tim Hortons (the Canadian version of Starbucks) and laughing about the brief rise and fall of a Sikh shinny legend.

To the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Punjabi broadcasts, which debuted during the final round of the 2008 playoffs and air on several satellite channels, represent an intriguing pilot project.

It has long been known to see them as a way to tap into a new audience and envisions a future where, perhaps, the show ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ goes global in its scope, beaming out broadcasts to China --in Mandarin and Cantonese -- to India in Punjabi, and to other far flung corners where the frozen game has no natural roots and English and French are not the official languages.

For the Singhs, Punjabi night in Canada is something more. Hockey is a birthright for Canadians and is often defined as “our game.”

More than 40% of the population in the Toronto region -- a sprawling area encompassing some seven million people, including almost 200,000 Punjabi speakers -- are immigrants. (Punjabi is ranked fourth among languages spoken in Canada behind English, French and Chinese).

The faces of the NHL players might still be overwhelmingly white, but white is not the color of the country Parminder Singh grew up in.

“I want to expand the definition of ‘our,’ “ he says. “If hockey is truly our game, then I think it is a mosaic game. Who are Canadians? Hockey is not just your typical white family anymore, and so to claim that it is our game, and be accurate, the game needs to make inroads into the ethnic communities.”

Parminder Singh’s parents could not afford to buy him proper hockey gloves.

Today’s immigrant families face equipment costs and prohibitive league fees, an issue that cuts both ways with many leagues facing static or falling player participation rates.
In the meantime, Parminder hosts a weekly health program on Punjabi television and works as a fundraiser at a hospital.

“We are getting a fan following,” says Parminder, who has been told HNIP has drawn close to 100,000 viewers. “It’s almost like a rock star status.”

Parminder Singh is humbled by the attention. Strangers approach and thank him for what he has done.

Thank him for being a voice on a Saturday night that speaks to Punjabi households that have a foot in India, and a future in Canada -- where hockey is their game -- and where a Sikh shinny legend is preparing to revive his career.

“I bought skates,” Parminder Singh says. “We are probably going to start playing shinny again soon.”