The New York Islanders’ Ethan Bear spent the day playing ball hockey with kids, signing autographs<\/p>\n
Ethan Bear’s summertime message to dozens of local youth was simple: believe in yourself.<\/p>\n
Bear, the now\u00a0New York Islanders defenceman who in 2020 honoured his\u00a0Indigenous heritage by having his last name written in Cree syllabics\u00a0on the back of his Edmonton Oilers jersey, visited\u00a0the Penticton Indian Band (PIB) on Aug. 15.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old, who’s also suited up for\u00a0Carolina, Vancouver, and Washington in his six-year NHL career, delivered remarks to the community before playing ball hockey with the kids and signing autographs.<\/p>\n
“It shows the community\u00a0members that something as fun as this is easy to set up, and kids can come play as much as they want,”\u00a0Bear said. “That’s something I had growing up.”<\/p>\n
Bear was\u00a0born in Saskatchewan,\u00a0raised in the\u00a0Ochapowace Nation east of Regina, but\u00a0spends his offseasons in West Kelowna. The fifth-round pick of the Oilers in 2015 played 61 games for the Canucks during\u00a0the 2022-23 campaign.<\/p>\n
A free-agent\u00a0acquisition\u00a0of the Islanders ahead of this season, Bear spent close to two hours with a stick in hand playing ball hockey with\u00a0youth from across the South Okanagan and Similkameen.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes it’s about\u00a0that first introduction to the game, playing with your band members and friends… it’s important,” Bear said. “It creates memories and bonds, and it’s awesome that they got to experience that today.”<\/p>\n
PIB Chief Greg Gabriel said he was thrilled to see Bear make an extended\u00a0appearance, which also included lunch at PIB Hall and photo opportunities with residents.<\/p>\n
“I really appreciate him taking the time to come,” Gabriel said. “The kids are just so happy today, and that’s all I want, to see the smiling\u00a0faces.”<\/p>\n
After Bear’s daily\u00a0workout \u2014 as he prepares for NHL training camp in less than a month \u2014 the 5’11”, 197-pound blueliner\u00a0spent most\u00a0of Friday morning telling the kids about his journey to professional hockey’s biggest stage.<\/p>\n
“The main thing is to really believe\u00a0in yourself,” Bear said, recounting\u00a0his speech to the kids. “Work hard, and when it gets hard, ask questions. When you put the effort in and are\u00a0willing to do the work, there’s going to be people there to help you.”<\/p>\n
Bear joins New York after splitting time last season with Washington \u2014 the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs \u2014 and the club’s American Hockey League Affiliate, the Hershey Bears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Islanders’ Ethan Bear spent the day playing ball hockey with kids, signing autographs Ethan Bear’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-74376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74376","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=74376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}