Color of Hockey: Yearwood finding his way as rookie in Estonian pro league

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles River Yearwood, a 26-year-old forward/defenseman from Baltimore, Maryland, a rookie playing professionally in Estonia.

River Yearwood dreamed of being a professional hockey player from the moment he first held a stick as a 7-year-old.

“Something about it just called to me,” Yearwood said. “Once I picked up that stick for the first time, I couldn’t do anything else.”

Yearwood’s dream has taken him nearly 4,400 miles from his Baltimore, Maryland, home to Estonia, where he is a 26-year-old rookie forward/defenseman for Viru Sputnik, a professional team playing in the country’s top-tier Unibet Hokiliiga.

“I didn’t know where, but I was going to do it, play pro,” Yearwood said. “And then the offer came up, I said, ‘Yep, Estonia it is.’”

Yearwood had no points in 16 regular-season games for Sputnik, primarily playing defense.

His improbable journey to play in the Northern European country that borders the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland is a story of an unwavering desire and determination to achieve his dream.

“The journey he has taken to where he is now is an incredible story,” said Washington Capitals broadcast color analyst Craig Laughlin, who coached Yearwood when he was a teenager. “Because it's a story of going from just about playing house league to where he is now.”

It all goes back to the outdoor Sculpture Garden rink in Washington, D.C., where a young Yearwood attended a grade school friend’s birthday party and laced up a pair of skates for the first time.

Afterward, he told his father, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., that he knew how to skate. Unconvinced, the elder Yearwood took his son back to the rink the following weekend and watched him.

“We went down there and, man, that little guy was going around that rink, just moving,” Rev. Yearwood said. “I was, like, ‘Wow, you really can skate.’”

That prompted Rev. Yearwood to place his son, then 7, in a Capitals learn to play program, where he immediately got hooked on hockey. His passion did not go unnoticed, and Yearwood was tapped to be a skating team flag bearer for a game at Verizon Center, now called Capital One Arena.

“That was pretty sick,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite memories.”

Yearwood’s father later enrolled him in Network Hockey, a training and skills program founded by Laughlin for players who aspire to advance in the sport. Laughlin, who had 341 points (136 goals, 205 assists) in 549 NHL games for the Montreal Canadiens, Capitals, Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs from 1981-89, saw a raw, quiet kid in Yearwood. He also saw potential and leaned hard on him.

“He used to call me ‘Riverboat’ because I took wide turns skating,” Yearwood said. “He was old school. Made you skate, made sure you did all the little things. He’d yell at you, scream at you, but all from a good place of trying to make you better.

"I literally spent whole summers with Craig and his coaching staff, just worked on the ice every day. I wouldn't be here, pretty much, if it wasn't for his coaching every summer.”

Laughlin was impressed by the attitude and eagerness of his pupil.

“He showed up every day, no matter what,” Laughlin said. “He wasn't the prettiest player. He wasn't the greatest skater. I always told him, ‘River, you're big, you're strong. Let's get going here. We don't know where the journey is going to end for you. It might end at the end in high school, I don't know. But let's try to make the journey last as long as we can, because you have a tremendous passion for this game.' ”

Yearwood played for Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, before moving on to play club hockey at Central Maine Community College for two seasons (2019-22) followed by two seasons (2022-24) for Paul Smith’s College in New York.

He registered 35 points (12 goals, 23 assists) in 71 American Collegiate Hockey Association Division, Collegiate Hockey Federation and Amateur Athletic Union College Hockey games.

“He's a big body (6-foot-3, 240 pounds), and was such a versatile player for us,” Paul Smith’s coach Casey Gerrish said. “What impressed me was his work ethic and his ability to go an extra yard. When River gets going in that fifth gear, like, he is almost unstoppable because of his size and his awareness and his ability to read plays. He was huge on the power play, penalty kill, 5-on-5, every situation I needed.”

Yearwood said it has been a season of adjustments playing in Estonia, mainly understanding the language and getting used to playing on the larger European ice surface.

“Defensively, you really got to think," he said, "because there's time you can make that extra pass that you really can't do in North America.”

Yearwood’s love for hockey spread to his father, a community activist president and founder of the Hip Hop Caucus, a non-profit organization that leverages hip hop culture to encourage young people to participate in the democratic process. He made a point of attending as many of his son’s practices and games as possible.

“When you come into it you think that this sport is siloed, that it’s not for people of color or Black people,” Rev. Yearwood said. “Then you realize it’s a great sport. It’s fast. It’s exciting. It’s strategy. It’s truly just non-stop action, and then you begin to like the sport.

"You have different people from different backgrounds. But you realize you’re all parents … It allowed me to see that we’re all people. It (hockey) brought people together. I’ve always kind of said, ‘Wow, I wish we could use more things like (hockey) to bring us together as people, as humans.’”

The younger Yearwood doesn’t know what his hockey future holds, but he plans on following Laughlin’s advice.

“I want to see how far I can go,” he said.