Capitals start Rising Stars Academy to help experienced players of color

The Washington Capitals announced they are launching the Rising Stars Academy, a free two-day program Aug. 19-20 designed to help advanced experienced players of color by providing unique on and off-ice training and support.

Registration is open on CapsYouthHockey.com to local boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 17 who have experience playing on travel or elite-level house league teams.

"It was an idea we kicked around and thought of coming out of the Capitals Stanley Cup victory (in 2018)," Capitals' director of youth hockey development Peter Robinson said. "It was about how are we really going to engage all of the communities interested in getting involved in hockey? Coming out of the pandemic and the formation of our Black Hockey Committee is what really re-sparked it."

On and off-ice training sessions will be held at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, the Capitals practice facility in Arlington, Virginia. Duante Abercrombie, a Capitals Black Hockey Committee member who served as a Toronto Maple Leafs coaching development associate last season, will be the academy's lead instructor.

He'll be joined by Neal Henderson, a 2019 United States Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who founded the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club, North America's oldest minority-oriented youth hockey program; Ralph Featherstone, a Fort Dupont coach and alum who was the first Black captain of the United States Naval Academy's club hockey team; and Bryan King, coach of Washington, D.C.'s Gonzaga College High School Varsity II team.

"This is one of the main drivers why I wanted to play pro hockey in the first place and definitely why I want to coach at the NHL level, to have a platform and use that platform to give back to my community," said Abercrombie, a Fort Dupont alum who was a men's assistant coach at NCAA Division III Stevenson University near Baltimore from 2020-22 and a guest coach at Arizona Coyotes development camp in September 2021 before working with Toronto.

"I'm from inner-city Washington, D.C. The kids that will be showing up at the Rising Stars are versions of little Duante and little Devan, my younger brother. When Peter reached out to me to see if I was interested in leading it, I said absolutely."

The academy's off-ice component will include dryland training, discussions about mental health and conflict resolution utilizing curriculum developed by Players Against Hate, a nonprofit organization.

Attendees will receive tips on cooking and eating healthy from Joel "Chef JoJo" Thomas, a Washington-area private chef and recreational hockey player who was featured in the NHL-produced series "Skates & Plates" in December 2020 with former Capitals forward Garnet Hathaway, who with the Philadelphia Flyers on July 1.

"Diversity is our greatest strength," said Alexandria Briggs-Blake, a Capitals Black Hockey Committee member and president of the Tucker Road Parent Hockey Organization, a suburban Washington minority-oriented youth hockey group.

"The Rising Stars Academy supports that concept and will serve as a model for other pro teams to follow."

The academy is funded through the Capital Impact Fund, which was created by the team and Monumental Sports & Entertainment Foundation in 2020 to provide grants to organizations that help eliminate cost barriers faced by individuals of color in the hockey community.

Washington's academy will be akin to the Pittsburgh Penguins' Willie O'Ree Academy, a comprehensive program founded in February 2021 to develop and support elite-level Black youth hockey players.

The academy was named in honor of O'Ree, a 2018 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who became the first Black player in the NHL when he debuted with the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 18, 1958 at the Montreal Forum.

"The Penguins (academy) has really grown. They're in their third year, they did it eight weeks, one day a week through the summer, which is great," Robinson said. "We're really looking to just start it by doing something more compact where we can engage the community, but with the same concept of what the Penguins did. I really liked what they did in engaging the families of those players all season long. That's what we've always wanted to do. We don't just want to do a one-off, we don't want to check the box. We want to do something that makes an impact."

Abercrombie said he hopes the Rising Stars Academy continues to grow in the years to come and becomes "just as notable as the Fort Dupont Cannons."

"I want it to be one of those programs that the rest of the world looks at as the NHL and the Washington Capitals did something amazing here with this, and they changed lives," he said.