Just because I have a Canadian passport does not mean I can dangle like this.
When I lived in Japan I was the authority on hockey. My Japanese students and mostly American coworkers assumed that because I'm Canadian I must know everything about the sport and be great at it too.
I seemed to be an ambassador for the sport in Japan.
"I saw on the BBC that you guys had a big hockey game," an Australian bartender in Kanagawa teased me after the 2011 riots in Vancouver.
The basic premise behind the stereotyping and mockery was clear: Canadians love hockey and people outside of Canada don't.
With all this in mind, I found this video of 11-year old Aito Iguchi refreshing. Aito is from Saitama in Japan, but he has skills with the puck many Canadians, myself included, can only dream of having.
He is obviously still young, but if he grows up to be an NHL star he could be huge for hockey in Japan. Everyone who has seen a Seattle Mariners game during the peak of Suzuki Ichiro's powers knows the Japanese media is fascinated by Japanese star athletes playing outside of their country.
As someone who loves hockey, it would be great to see NHL stars from new places. While as Canadians, we want to dominate the sport, if we really want to see the sport grow, it is important to get great players and teams from different countries.
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