vice president of cultural growth and strategy for the Dallas Stars<\/a>. \u201cNow I have the opportunity to coach Team Cuba and coach my son. I’m getting chills talking about it right now. As the first Cuban American to play in the\u00a0NHL, for me, this is that full circle moment.<\/p>\n\u201cThe manager for Team Cuba reached out, Henry was able to play, and the Dallas Stars encouraged me to go and help grow the game. I said yes, and now we’ve got the Cubans from my family coming from all parts of Florida to come watch us play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHL and NHL Players\u2019 Association, through the Industry Growth Fund and Florida Panthers, help support the LATAM Cup. The fund was created as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2013 to support and accelerate the development of League and Club initiatives and projects that promote long-term fan development and increase participation in hockey at all levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past seven years, the LATAM Cup has become a powerful example of hockey\u2019s ability to bring people together, celebrate culture and create opportunity,\u201d said Rob Knesaurek, senior vice president, NHL community development and industry growth. \u201cWhat started as a vision to showcase talent from Latin America and other non-traditional hockey markets has grown into a premier international event that inspires players, families and communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the support of the NHL\/NHLPA Industry Growth Fund, the LATAM Cup has helped expand access to the game, strengthen local hockey communities and create meaningful opportunities for participants to develop a lifelong connection to hockey. We\u2019re proud of the tournament\u2019s continued growth and the positive impact it is making both on and off the ice.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Selected by the New York Rangers in the first round with the No. 6 pick in the 2004\u00a0NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-826258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}