The Canucks coach hoping to sell hockey to India

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For many young Canadians of South Asian descent, hockey has been a way for them into broader Canadian culture.

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It’s a little ironic, Harry Mahesh admits with a laugh, that hockey is going to do the reverse for him.

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Mahesh grew up in Vanderhoof and took to hockey early. It’s what everyone in northern B.C. does, after all. His parents Zora and Rupinder, born and raised in India, had no idea what was going on, but it made their son happy and that’s what mattered.

“I’ve often distanced myself from my own culture, but now all these years later going back to India for the first time, it’s a little surreal,” Mahesh said this week, shortly before jetting off on a trip that would take him halfway around the world, to not far from where his parents had lived. “Hockey has been my identity until now.”

His final destination is Chandigarh, the northern Indian city that is the capital of the state of Punjab, where so many Indo-Canadians come from. His parents lived not far away in their youth — his father moved to Canada in 1970 and his mom followed a little while later.

In Chandigarh, Mahesh is joining Randip Janda, best known as host of Hockey Night In Canada: Punjabi and colour commentator on Vancouver Canucks’ broadcasts.

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It’s a partnership that was built through Mahesh’s work in hockey, which has landed him as an assistant coach for the AHL Abbotsford Canucks for the past two years.

They first met while Mahesh was an assistant coach with the BCHL’s Powell River Kings in 2022-23. Hockey Night In Canada: Punjabi was doing a feature on coaches, and Janda travelled up the coast to speak with him.

Then he was invited to the Canucks’ South Asian night and they caught up again.

“He reached out to me and it was a pretty easy yes,” Mahesh said of how he got involved with what they are calling the India Hockey 360 Festival. It runs this weekend in Chandigarh and features a Try Hockey session, a coaches summit, and roller hockey coaching session.

Janda visited India in February and ended up meeting hockey leaders there.

“How can we make an impact,” Janda asked. He met local players in Chandigarh, as well as officials from the Indian Ice Hockey Federation. Field hockey is a massive sport in India, but the ice version is not known much at all. Roller hockey is big in Chandigarh, and some of those players also play on ice, Janda explained. But there is no proper ice rink in the city itself, so they have to go far afield to find games.

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There are pockets of interest in the north of the country, but broad awareness barely exists, if at all, in a country that is generally consumed by cricket and little else.

The answer to Janda’s query was simple — help coach the coaches they have, and spend some time with the high-level players who do exist. And so Janda got to work. If he made a good presentation, he would surely be able bring others on board, as well as sponsors.

“It was about building a project, with off-ice training to think about coaching differently, leadership and technical skills,” Janda said. It didn’t take long for him to drum up interest. India has no national TV rights deal, but the NHL was still interested in what might be possible in the world’s most populous country.

“As you know, the budgets in sports are tight, but credit to the NHL and the Canucks,” Janda said. “And Bauer, they’re giving us the gear.

The league and the Canucks have provided financial support. The Canucks are also sending apparel and, of course, a coach in Mahesh. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Anaheim Ducks are also involved.

“I’m excited to take something I care about to where my family came from,” Mahesh said.

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Growing up, he did what most other boys in Vanderhoof did: he played hockey. It turned out he was pretty good at it. He played Junior B in Alberta and B.C., then Junior A in Manitoba. Then he played a season of pro hockey in Sweden, then five years in the depths of American minor pro leagues.

He loved the game, but rarely does it love you back. In Mahesh’s case, it turned out the game did love him back — he had a knack for coaching. He started out as an assistant coach in the Banff Hockey Academy program — he had played there at the beginning of his Junior B career — then quickly into the hockey coaching world. He spent a season as a U15 coach in the Alberta Major Midget league, then three years coaching elite girls hockey in Manitoba. A season and a half coaching in the Manitoba junior league came before his year in Powell River.

And then began his professional coaching life, joining the Maple Leafs as a development coach.

“Dream come true,” he said, to no surprise, about how his coaching career has already panned out.

Two years into his time with the Canucks, working in a hockey community that is just about the most diverse in the game, he has come to grips with himself being a role model to Canadian youngsters with South Asian backgrounds.

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“I’ve just been a guy who has worked and kept his mouth shut, never thought I was in a position to do something,” he said.

“But I started to realize I was catching the attention of other people and I just decided to go with it.”

Janda said that Mahesh is the perfect recruit.

“Year one, we wanted someone with high-level expertise,” the broadcaster explained. “I reached out to Harry very early in the process.”

And so Mahesh finds himself doing something he had never really imagined, but a project that obviously has delighted the people most important to him: his parents.

“There were probably the most excited,” he said, his grin practically audible over the phone. “They don’t really believe it’s happening in their lifetime.”

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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