Color of Hockey: Maharaj traveled long road to become Ducks goalie coach

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past nine years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, as part of Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, he profiles Anaheim Ducks goalie coach Sudarshan "Sudsie" Maharaj.

Sudarshan Maharaj was a young boy from Trinidad when he fell in love with hockey after his family traded their warm Caribbean island home for Toronto's winter cool in search of a better life.
He attended his first NHL game at Maple Leaf Gardens and stood by the low glass wide-eyed to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs briskly skate through their pregame warmup.
When the players were leaving the ice, one tossed Maharaj a puck, a moment that proved to be an epiphany and kismet.
Today, Maharaj, who is of Indian descent, is the goalie coach for the Anaheim Ducks. The Toronto player who tossed the puck was Bruce Boudreau, who later became Maharaj's boss when he coached Anaheim from 2011-16.
"I told Bruce that story," Maharaj said. "He was shocked that I remembered. It was definitely a great moment. It certainly resonated with me for a lot of years, although I don't know whatever happened to that puck."
Maharaj has been putting goalies through their paces in Anaheim since August 2016 after joining the Ducks as goalie consultant in 2013-14. He has coached goalie John Gibson throughout his NHL career and most of his minor league career.

In 16 years as a coach, Maharaj has also worked with Frederik Andersen, Anton Khudobin, Kevin Weekes, Al Montoya, Rick DiPietro, Martin Biron and Dwayne Roloson.
"For me, he was a godsend," said Weekes, an NHL Network analyst who credits Maharaj with transforming his playing style from a standup, reflex game to more of a butterfly style through offseason training. "I told 'Sudsie' then, 'To this point, you're good or better than any NHL coach that I had.'"
Sudarshan "Sudsie" Maharaj's hockey story is an unconventional tale of immigration, opportunity, prejudice and perseverance.
Maharaj's family immigrated from Trinidad to Toronto in the 1970s when he was about eight years old. His father landed a job at an auto dealership and worked his way up from washing cars to selling them.
Hockey aided the family's assimilation to their new country. Maharaj eagerly accepted the invitation of neighborhood kids to join them in playing street hockey.
Like most Canadians, the Maharaj household gathered around the television on Saturday nights to watch "Hockey Night in Canada."
When Maharaj began playing hockey, his older brother, then a huge fan of Maple Leafs goalie Bernie Parent, steered his younger brother to the net.
"I loved it and ended up playing there the rest of my life," Maharaj said. "The mask and the equipment, and I just loved the position."
Maharaj became good enough to play briefly at the University of Wisconsin before moving on to York University in Toronto. After NHL teams didn't show interest in him following his collegiate career, Maharaj packed his pads and went to Sweden, where he played professionally from 1985-91.
Racist taunts and hostility on and off the ice accompanied Maharaj throughout his hockey journey, and Sweden was no exception. There, someone set his car ablaze with a Molotov cocktail.
"One of the young lads didn't like the color of my skin, me being in the town and who I was associating and all that," he said. "There were names hurled at different points on the ice, in front of the net, during scrums and things like that."
He said he refused to let racism deter him because "you can't let it impede you from your ultimate goal because, in the end, if you do, they win."
Maharaj retired as a player in 1991 at 27 and returned to York University to finish his degree work in English and physical education. At about the same time, the university's goalie coach left and Maharaj was asked to fill the vacancy.
A career was born.
He began coaching goalies on the side while working as a teacher of at-risk teenagers in the Toronto area. Maharaj's work caught the attention of DiPietro, and the Islanders hired him as their goalie coach from 2003-06 and goalie consultant from 2009-12.
Anaheim hired Maharaj in 2013-14 as a consultant for its American Hockey League affiliate, which was then in Norfolk, Virginia. There, he began working with Gibson and Andersen, who now plays for the Maple Leafs.
Boudreau, now an analyst on NHL Network, said Gibson has beneftted by having Maharaj for almost his entire professional career.
" 'Gibby' had an awful lot of faith in him and he turned out to be a tremendous, tremendous goaltender," Boudreau said. "So when it was time for 'Gibby' to be a fulltime NHL player, it only made sense that 'Sudsie' was the guy that was his coach, because that was the guy he had faith in."
Maharaj credits his coaching longevity to naiveite that helped him overcome obstacles, including once being told in a rejection letter for an Ontario Hockey League goalie coaching job that he wasn't qualified and probably never would be qualified for the position.
"It's one of those things where you just have to keep your head down and stride forward in that old saying, 'You don't look at the hurdles, you like at the finish line,'" he said. "In a naive way, I was trying to look for the finish line and didn't see as many hurdles as there were, for sure. It was definitely helpful. It stopped me from getting angry all the time and from accepting or feeling that 'You know what? This is not going to work. It's not going to happen.'"
Now, 16 years in, Maharaj is considered one of the best goalie coaches in the best hockey league in the world.
"I feel like I'm still learning, still trying to figure things out and the position has changed so much over the years," he said. "I'm content in that position as long as I have good goalies, and more important, good people to work with."