Color of Hockey: Gomez credits start in USA Hockey as 1st step to USHHOF

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, as part of NHL.com's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, he profiles retired NHL forward Scott Gomez, who was elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and is in his first season as coach of Chicago of the United States Hockey League.

Scott Gomez was on a Montreal golf course in June when he got the call.

He didn’t answer.

“There was a number that kept calling me and I didn’t know what the number was,” Gomez said.

Recognizing some of the digits, Gomez texted Dave Fischer, communications director for USA Hockey, who told him, “Hey, you really need to answer this call.”

When he finally did, Gomez, the first Latino to win the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year and a two-time Stanley Cup champion, learned he had been elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2025 along with Joe Pavelski, one of eight United States-born players to play at least 1,300 NHL games; Zach Parise, who played more than 1,250 games with four teams over 19 seasons; Tara Mounsey, an Olympic gold medalist who starred at Brown University; and Bruce Bennett, one of hockey’s greatest photographers. The Class of 2025 will be honored at a dinner and ceremony in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Dec. 10.

“I’m not really one for accolades, it is what is,” Gomez said. “But what flashed through my mind on the golf course was, like, wow, how it all started with USA Hockey.

"The first national camp I went to, that’s the biggest deal. When you turn 15-16 and you go to the first national camp where it’s the best of the best. It was just amazing how I thought of that right away, ‘I’m going to compete against the best kids. How do I stack up?’ You found out pretty quick that this Alaskan could stack up.”

Selected by the New Jersey Devils with the No. 27 pick in the 1998 NHL Draft, Gomez had 756 points (181 goals, 575 assists) in 1,079 NHL games for the Devils, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens, San Jose Sharks, Florida Panthers, St. Louis Blues and Ottawa Senators.

The Anchorage, Alaska, native won the Calder Trophy, voted as the NHL's top rookie, in 1999-2000 and helped New Jersey win the Stanley Cup in 2000 and 2003. He had 101 points (29 goals, 72 assists) in 149 Stanley Cup Playoff games.

Gomez also had five points (one goal, four assists) in six games at the 2006 Torino Olympics, tying for the most on the United States with Craig Conroy.

After retiring as a player in 2016, he was an assistant with the New York Islanders from 2017-19. Gomez was an assistant for Surrey of the British Columbia Hockey League in 2023-24 and became coach and GM last June; he succeeded Cam Keith, who moved on to become coach and GM of Cowichan Valley of the BCHL after he led Surrey to the league’s Fred Page Cup last season.

Gomez is in his first season as coach of Chicago of the United States Hockey League, and is the second Hispanic coach in the 16-team league.

Gomez said he has alternated between awe and amusement since his USHHOF election, humbled by the talent and accomplishments of the American players, coaches and builders who are enshrined and entertained from watching some of the young players he has coached scurry to social media to learn exactly what he did during his playing days.

“It’s hilarious, they had to YouTube me up,” he said. “They asked me when I first got into coaching, ‘Who was the best player you played with?’ I said, ‘Alexander Mogilny.’ All these kids didn’t know who ‘Al-mo’ was. I was actually talking to Joe Thornton about it the other day. It just shows you the different generations and all that. Me and ‘Jumbo’ were saying, ‘If we were that age, I could name the fourth line guy off the Hartford Whalers. It’s funny how that works. I coach players now, they have no clue who we are.”

But a generation of Hispanic fans and players who grew up watching Gomez’s career fondly remember him and are thrilled about his USHHOF induction.

“It’s great,” said JJ Velez, president of the board of New York’s Ice Hockey in Harlem.

“Having somebody who is Mexican, Latino, it means a lot. To see him play at a high level and have the career that he had? Oh, my gosh, absolutely.”

Though Velez got to see Gomez up close when he was growing up in New York, Sam Uisprapassorn followed his exploits with pride from southern California.

“I think his induction is huge,” said Uisprapassorn, who coaches national teams for Colombia and led Chapman University’s American Collegiate Hockey Association’s men’s Division II team in Orange, California. “Anytime you hear someone with a Latino last name playing, it stands out in your childhood. And obviously for me personally, understanding that he has some Colombian lineage in him, that’s pretty huge.”

Diego de la Garma, technical director for the Mexico Ice Hockey Federation, said Gomez’s success in the NHL has contributed to the growth of hockey south of the U.S. border.

“Kids these days, they see Auston Matthews,” de la Garma said. “But you know, all the fathers of these kids, they followed Scott Gomez, and they felt proud having a Mexican heritage player representing Mexico so good. For all the players who don’t play anymore who are in their 30s or 40s and have their kids in hockey in Mexico, he’s, like, our hero, for sure.”

Gomez said following Bill Guerin as the second Hispanic player in the NHL wasn’t a big deal to him coming from a diverse community in Anchorage.

“Growing up, I was never the Mexican, Latin hockey player. It was never a big deal,” he said. “Then when I got out, went to juniors, people kind of made a story about, it was some mystical thing, it didn't make sense how a Mexican Colombian played hockey. When I got to Jersey, my heritage … I didn't want to be compared to Jackie Robinson and what he had to go through. Talking to my parents, I told them, 'Man, they're really making this a story.'

“We're kind of jokesters in my family and my old man said, 'Go with it, be yourself.' “I used a quote that 'It's not like I crossed the border with five bottles of tequila and a pair of skates and magic happened.' As I got older, I realized people thought it (his heritage) was neat. If it was going to help another Latin kid play hockey … if they saw a kid with my background and stuff and they wanted to play hockey and got inspired, that's when I really understood it."

These days, when Gomez’s players ask who’s his favorite NHL player, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Auston Matthews, man,” he said. “He’s got Mexican in him.”