Capitals welcome home Abercrombie with tribute

Duante Abercrombie had a homecoming to Capital One Arena Saturday.

The 35-year-old alum of Washington, D.C.'s venerable Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, returned to his native city for the first time as a coaching development associate for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Abercrombie stood behind the bench during warmups before Toronto faced the Washington Capitals while his family, Fort Dupont coach and founder Neal Henderson and members of the Capitals' Black Hockey Committee watched from the glass directly behind him.

The Capitals also paid tribute to Abercrombie on Capital One Arena's giant center ice scoreboard.

"It brings tears to my eyes, I'll tell you," said
Henderson, a 2019 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame inductee
who established North America's oldest minority-oriented youth hockey program in 1978. "It's amazing to see what he's come through to be where he is. It shows that no matter where you come from, it's what you can arise to."
Abercrombie longed to follow Henderson, a mentor and father figure into the coaching ranks and someday work for an NHL team.
He and Nathaniel Brooks were the subjects of "NHL Bound,"
a four-part, NHL-produced docuseries that chronicled the two Black coaches as they participated in the Arizona Coyotes' first coaching internship program in September 2021.
Arizona hired Brooks, a former Ryerson University assistant men's hockey coach, as skills development coach in July 2022.
The Maple Leafs hired Abercrombie in September from Stevenson University, an NCAA Division III school near Baltimore where he was an assistant coach from 2019-22.
He was also a coach and director of player achievement for the Washington Little Caps, coach of Georgetown Preparatory School, an instructor at retired NHL forward Graeme Townshend's in Maine and a personal skills coach.