\u201cArjun Atwal, who is unbelievable and one of my closest friends, decided he wanted to throw my name in the hat,\u201d said Sekhon, adding it was a surprise to be nominated for such a prestigious award. \u201cI got an email, which I glanced over at first. A couple of days later, I realized I was in consideration, then the next month I had a call from the NHL\u2019s people telling me I was a finalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sekhon grew up playing hockey in Edmonton, and it has been an integral part of his life ever since he can remember. When he was 16, he became a volunteer for the Brick Invitational Hockey Tournament<\/a> \u2013 an annual tournament that occurs at West Edmonton Mall \u2013 and he has been there ever since.<\/p>\n Now, he serves as an executive member of the board at the tournament, and he is looking forward to cementing his legacy and impact on these up-and-coming hockey stars by promoting leadership and kindness amongst young hockey players.<\/p>\n He and other members of the committee have begun the process of a new program for the tournament called \u201cB.R.I.C.K.\u201d meaning \u201cBuilding Respect, Inclusivity, Character, and Kindness.\u201d Sekhon says it is important to him that the tournament uses the platform they have developed to engulf the sport in a better environment.<\/p>\n Nearly 500 NHL players come through the Brick Invitational Hockey Tournament, and it has seven first overall draft picks in its alumni: Steven Stamkos, Erik Johnson, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes, Connor Bedard, and Macklin Celebrini.<\/p>\n \u201cThe B.R.I.C.K. leadership program will be a professionally delivered curriculum to all of our players in the tournament,\u201d said Sekhon. \u201cWe want to contribute to make things better. Even if these kids don\u2019t stay in hockey, these are still important skills to learn about, and will inspire them to want to be leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Eighty-two per cent of their players, Sekhon said, have gone on to major junior or junior hockey careers.<\/p>\n Sonny Sekhon holding a Brick Invitational Hockey Tournament disk.<\/p>\n This tournament is not the only thing that Sekhon has been a part of to create a more inclusive community in hockey. In 2018, he founded a three-on-three tournament for Indian ball hockey players. Later, he and Atwal, who was one of the finalists for the award last year, turned the tournament into a full league that provides these players with a platform to showcase their talents, called the \u201cPunjabi Elite League\u201d (AZPEL)<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to Sekhon, the Team India program has been \u201cdormant\u201d for nearly a decade, in large part due to a lack of representation of professional ball hockey players. This year marks a year of resurgence for this team, and Sekhon\u2019s AZPEL has four representatives who will be making the squad: Arjun Atwal, Arjun Dhaliwal, Jessy Virdee, and Sunny Brar \u2013 brother of OilersTV host, Tony.<\/p>\n Along with this, Sekhon will also be the vice president of the women\u2019s team, with his colleague and friend, Amrit Ghuman, who will be the president. He has become a driving force for all underrepresented communities in both ball and ice hockey.<\/p>\n \u201cI think as we get into the next generation, we are going to continue to show it\u2026 have more kids events, have more women\u2019s events,\u201d Sekhon says. \u201cOur league is going to do that. We are going to continue to host free kids\u2019 games and free women\u2019s games. We are going to have a moms versus kids game this season, which is going to be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n He says he is most proud of how he has been able to provide kids of all backgrounds with greater opportunities. One specific example being Maksim Manku, who went from being a kid who could skate but was nervous about how he would handle diving into a brand new sport, to being the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 Rona Skater, skating alongside players like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, we had our first kids showcase, and there were 18 kids. This year, we almost tripled that. Arjun has almost 400 kids in the AZ1 network,\u201d Sekhon says about the growth of his and Atwal\u2019s programs. \u201cI can name, on two hands, every BIPOC kid I ever played with in ten years of high-level hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing the game for the future generation of hockey players is what he is most passionate about. He says, \u201cI just wanted to provide kids with opportunities I didn\u2019t have. Now my son and nephews and nieces have these opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not Sekhon\u2019s first time being acknowledged as a hero in our community. In 2023, he was nominated as one of Edify\u2019s \u201c40 Under 40\u201d<\/a> for his philanthropic work with Free Play for Kids<\/a>, which is a program that provides free sports programming as afterschool childcare\u00a0to children that come from difficult financial situations.<\/p>\n Sekhon says a lot of his passion comes from being an Edmontonian. He loves the city and wants to see it be \u201cput on the map\u201d for being as amazing as he feels it is.<\/p>\n \u201cEdmonton has always had this terrible reputation of being cold, and all we have is a mall, and the Oilers. It\u2019s so far from the truth,\u201d he says. \u201cThe city we have is unreal. If anything, we are guilty about being too modest about how awesome our sports innovations are.\u201d<\/p>\n For Sekhon, this experience has been overwhelming in a positive way. He says he is honoured to be receiving recognition for what he has been doing, but he recognizes that it is bigger than himself. He thanks Atwal, Ghuman, Dampy Brar, and others for joining him in cultivating a new and accepting path for hockey players of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, genders, and sexualities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBeing nominated for this award means everything to me. It\u2019s really humbling to be recognized for the work I have done with so many amazing people. I love Edmonton. I take every opportunity I can to highlight it and improve it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s really humbling\u2019: How Edmonton\u2019s Sonny Sekhon became a Willie O\u2019Ree Award finalist For more than two decades,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-683194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sonny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779328771_439_image.jpeg\"\/)
Delaney Miles<\/p>\n