Color of Hockey: Ohashi excited to join Kraken as head video analyst

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 Tim Ohashi, who was hired last month as head video analyst for the expansion Seattle Kraken, who will begin play as the 32nd NHL team next season.

Tim Ohashi's 69-year-old father doesn't have to do 100 pushups in return for the Seattle Kraken hiring his son as its first head video analyst.
Not that it would have been a problem.
Tim's father, Kenichi Ohashi, is a fifth-degree black belt in the Japanese martial art of Shorinji Kempo who famously dropped and did 100 in front of impressed Washington Capitals players after wins in 2017 and 2019 during fathers trips when the younger Ohashi was the team's video analyst.
"He'd probably do it again if that were a hiring condition," Tim Ohashi said with a laugh, "but fortunately that wasn't a requirement."

Seattle feels fortunate to have landed Ohashi. Kraken director of hockey strategy and research
Alexandra Mandrycky
lauds him as someone who keeps pace with the game's evolution on the ice and with the ever-changing technology in a video position that's grown in importance and stature in the NHL in recent years.
Video analysts and coaches have become the eyes of coaching staffs, helping them see trends on the ice in real time. They are also often deciders. Coaches usually ask video coaches or analysts for quick replays before challenging a goal on a potentially missed offsides play that could determine the outcome of a game.
"In these COVID times, video may be even more important than it was before, certainly over the next year," said Mandrycky, an analytics expert. "Selfishly, I'm excited. He can sort of speak the analytics language and also the X's and O's, which we have found really, really useful with him working with our research and development group."
Ohashi is among a small but growing number of video analysts and coaches of color who've joined NHL teams in recent years.
The Toronto Maple Leafs hired Sam Kim as their video and coaching coordinator in September after he served as video coordinator for Bakersfield of the American Hockey League for two seasons and video coach for South Korea's men's team at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.
Samson Lee, who is Taiwanese-Canadian, joined the Los Angeles Kings as video coach in 2015 after holding the same job with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Tommy Cruz, a former junior hockey goalie who is Cuban-American, has been the video coordinator for the Vegas Golden Knights since 2017 after three years in the same job with the Florida Panthers.
Nigel Kirwan has been the video coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning since 1996 and became the first Black coach on a Stanley Cup team when the Lightning first won it in 2004. His
name was inscribed on the Cup again
after the Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars in the 2020 Stanley Cup Final in six games on Sept. 28.
Ohashi said the ascension of the video coach/analyst position has created a different path into the NHL and in hockey in general for minorities who might not have played or been involved in the game at the elite level. Having video expertise is helping change the hiring system away from who you know to one that gives more consideration to what you know and what you can do, he said.
"I think it's becoming more merit-based rather than a position of convenience," said Ohashi, who played club hockey as an undergrad at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. "Obviously, it's no secret that there's a huge population of extremely talented people of color in the country that are capable of doing a job that anyone else can do. And we need more diversity in hockey."

That's a message Ohashi and other video coaches/analysts of color have been sharing in Zoom sessions hosted by the NHL Coaches' Association, which is working to increase diversity and inclusion behind the bench and off the ice.
Ohashi said it was empowering for him to see people of Asian heritage like Hockey Hall of Fame forward Paul Kariya and Stan Wong, a former athletic trainer for the Capitals and Florida Panthers who also worked for the past four U.S. men's Olympic hockey teams.
"I would tune into as many games as I could, and simply seeing an Asian-American standing behind an NHL bench was powerful imagery for me when I was in my formative years," Ohashi said of Wong. "I never met or crossed paths with either guy, but I hope that one day I do because whether they know it or not, I owe them a debt of gratitude for reassuring a younger version of myself that hockey was for me."

Ohashi said he also owes his video career to injury. He thought he'd be a middle school teacher after he finished graduate school at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. But his plans changed when he suffered a serious back injury that forced him to move back home with his mother in Bethesda, Maryland, for surgery and rehabilitation.
Bored from doing little more that than physical therapy, he enrolled in sports management graduate classes at Georgetown University. The program encouraged students to make connections in the sports world and seek internships, so Ohashi set his sights on the Capitals.
"I just peppered my resume throughout the Capitals organization," he said. "I knew I always loved hockey, I'd always followed very closely, was pretty up to date on it. I just wanted to try to get my foot in the door and see that side of the industry."
His job quest coincided with coach Barry Trotz's 2014 arrival from the Nashville Predators, where he used video extensively.
"He was coming from a place in Nashville where he was used to having multiple video people on his staff and Washington had only one video person, so there was excess work based on Barry's needs and demands," Ohashi said. "My resume and cover letter happened to be in the coaching office at the time, and I got brought in for an interview that turned into an internship and at the end of it culminated into a full-time job."
Ohashi said his interest in joining the Kraken stemmed in part from listening to Trotz speak fondly of his experience in helping shape the expansion Predators, who entered the NHL in 1998.
"That has always stuck with me," he said. "Working for an expansion team is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Another reason for moving to Washington State from Washington, D.C. was family. Ohashi's fiancée, Nicole, is from Bellevue, Washington, and his father retired and settled in Washougal, about 178 miles south of Seattle.
Ohashi he's going to miss the Capitals and Washington, D.C. but he's excited about living in Seattle, where nearly 15 percent of the population is Asian, according to the city's website.
"Growing up Japanese-American, biracial, in D.C., you notice that you look different than most of your peers in school, when you're playing sports, whatever," Ohashi said. "A little over a decade ago I visited Seattle for the first time and I remember when I got home I realized it was the first city I'd ever been to in the world -- I've been fortunate enough to travel a little bit abroad and domestically as well -- I'd really ever been where I felt like I didn't necessarily stand out because of my appearance. I think there is somewhat of a level of comfort in that."
The Kraken are pumped about having the 32-year-old video analyst.
"I can't wait for Tim's dad to be on a dads trip in the future," Mandrycky said.