The New York Rangers announced on Friday (6 November 2020) that retired NHLer Jim Neilson had passed on.
My first exposure to hockey was in 1963 as a kid. My first Rangers game was the spring of that year.
Neilson had become a regular on the blueline that season for New York. In that era, and into today, Neilson was always my favorite Rangers player. Much of that was the position he played, I gravitated to defense then and now.
It was his nickname that stuck with me, “The Chief”. As a little kid and then early teen, it was cool.
I was too young and no one in my family or friends ever talked about Neilson being First Nations in Canada. I just know that when we played street hockey or some kind of hockey in the winters, I always thought of myself as playing in Neilson’s skates as The Chief. I wanted to be Jim Neilson.
It wasn’t for another few decades that I learned more about Neilson, Canada’s First Nations and American Indian Nations in the US. And met someone who would become one of my closest friends, also nicknamed The Chief, by his brothers in arms in Vietnam.
Neilson was featured as an Indigenous pro athlete in “They Call Me Chief: Warriors On Ice,” a 2008 book by the late Don Marks.
“All of a sudden, you’re playing defense against the [Gordie] Howes and the [Jean] Beliveaus,” he told Marks for the book. “They can make you look small, so you have to really get to know yourself, know what your capabilities are. Whereas you have to realize that you’re progressing at the same time, you still have to have confidence. You don’t let your mistakes beat you. You learn from your mistakes.”
I’ve been thinking over the last few days how I idolized Neilson as a kid and my life has taken me through twists and turns over the decades since, to now find myself working with American Indian Nations in public health.
We imprint early, but it takes years to learn the reason.
Jim Neilson is on a new path, and I wish him well.