Color of Hockey: Etem eager to start next phase of career

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past eight years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the game. Today, he profiles former NHL player Emerson Etem.

A knee injury robbed
Emerson Etem
of the breakaway speed that helped make him an NHL first-round draft pick. It hasn't diminished his love for the game.
More than a year after announcing his retirement as a player, Etem is back in the game as coach of Missoula of the North American 3 Hockey League, a Tier III junior team in western Montana.
The city of 74,000 along the Clark Fork River is a long way from Long Beach, California, where Etem was raised, and the Junior Bruins he's coaching are a few rungs below the Anaheim Ducks, who selected him in the first round (No. 29) of the 2010 NHL Draft. But the 28-year-old rookie coach said he's enjoying taking on a new challenge.

"There's a lot on my plate taking on a big role here covering multiple fields: Going out and getting sponsorships from the community, recruiting, website design," said Etem, who scored 46 points (22 goals, 24 assists) in 173 games for the Ducks, New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks. "You name it, I'm doing it. I'm happy being where I'm at right now. It's challenging. But being able to work with the younger generation is quite rewarding."
Etem will get his first taste of working behind the bench when the 2020-21 NA3HL season begins; it's scheduled to start Oct. 2. He was hired in February after he contacted team ownership about the position.
"He has an obvious love for the game and a deep passion for teaching," owners Jason and Liz DiMatteo said in a statement in February. "He's not just going to be a great asset for our team, but for the Missoula hockey community at large."
Etem had all the making of a successful NHL player after the swift-skating forward scored 252 points (143 goals, 109 assists) in 202 games for Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League and led the WHL in goals (61) in 2011-12.
He played for Shattuck-St. Mary's School -- the Minnesota prep school attended by players such as Sidney Crosby, Zach Parise and Jonathan Toews -- as well as the U.S. National Team Development Program. He was also a member of the U.S. team that finished third at the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship.
Etem displayed a determination to succeed early by beginning workouts at age 14 with T.R. Goodman, the famed personal trainer whose clients included
Chris Chelios
,
Rob Blake
,
Rick Tocchet
and a young Crosby. He worked up a sweat just traveling nearly 30 miles from Long Beach to Goodman's gym in Venice Beach; Etem would rise at 6 a.m., roller blade to a train and transfer to a bus near Los Angeles International Airport that deposited him about a half mile from Goodman's gym. To finish the 2 1/2-hour trip, he'd roller blade the rest of the way there.

"Aside from Sid Crosby, he was the most focused kid at that age I'd ever seen, easy," Goodman said. "He would watch how Blakey worked out, how Chris Chelios worked out. Because he was such a great student and so observant, I had him start working out with those guys."
Etem made his NHL debut with the Ducks on Jan. 29, 2013, and scored 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 38 games as a rookie. But his career took a turn when he was injured in a knee-to-knee collision with San Jose Sharks forward
Raffi Torres
during a preseason game in September 2013.
He played two more seasons with the Ducks before Anaheim traded him to the Rangers in January 2015 for forward Carl Hagelin and draft picks. After 19 games, New York sent Etem to Vancouver in January 2016 for forward
Nicklas Jensen
and a sixth-round pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. He returned to the Ducks in 2016-17 but played just three games. After short stints in the American Hockey League, Switzerland and a personal tryout with the Los Angeles Kings, Emerson felt it was time to move on.
"I wasn't the same since I suffered a knee injury back in the preseason of 2013," he said. "I tried to piece anything and everything together, and it just didn't end up working out."
Willie Desjardins, who coached Etem in Vancouver and at Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League, said the forward struggled to adapt after the injury.
"The biggest part of his game was his skating. He was an elite skater," he said. "And if you take that out of his game, he wasn't as elite anymore. When you lose something, you've got to be able to adapt and maybe pick up a different part of your game. And I think he found that hard."
Trying to figure out what he wanted to do next, Etem returned to Medicine Hat and worked as an instructor at Desjardins' WD South Alberta Hockey Academy.
"I was on the ice every day running practices with the academy kids, but not necessarily behind the bench for games," he said. "It was really rewarding at the academy working with the players, seeing them start off at Point A and how they developed. It was rewarding, I wanted to stick with it. I felt like I was getting better and better pertaining to on ice and at the board."
After spending more than 20,000 on-ice hours working with youth, college and professional players, Etem feels he's ready to coach.
"I think the game at a way higher level than even in my NHL days and look forward to passing off this knowledge to these young men," he said.
Etem said he intends to employ some of the knowledge that he gained playing professionally under coaches like Desjardins, Bruce Boudreau, Dallas Eakins and Trent Yawney.
"Bruce Boudreau, for instance, he was the only coach who really told me on dumps, chips, to keep it away from the goalie," he said. "He classified that as a turnover. Little stuff like that goes a long way, and I'm going to relay that message to my players."
Photos courtesy of Justin Seward/Alta Newspaper Group and T.R. Goodman