Dekermenjian voted Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher winner

Nareg Dekermenjian didn't think it was strange that trucks from several Los Angeles television stations were parked Wednesday outside of Dixie Canyon Community Charter, where he's a fifth-grade teacher.

After all, the Los Angeles Kings were hosting a ball hockey event on the school's playground as part of the annual Teacher Appreciation Week. But Dekermenjian thought something was up when a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District board arrived. Then, Kings Community and Hockey Development Coordinator Kyle Thurman, one of his former roller hockey players, spoke at the event and delivered a surprise kicker.

He announced that Dekermenjian was the 2025 Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher winner.

"I was speechless, absolutely speechless," Dekermenjian said. "I knew I was a finalist, but not in my wildest dreams did I think I won this thing."

The NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association for the sixth season teamed up with EVERFI, the leader in powering social impact through education, to honor teachers through the Most Valuable Teacher program. Fans voted for Dekermenjian from among 31 finalists.

In addition to the honor of this recognition, he's won a trip to an NHL event.

"Mr. Dekermenjian is truly one of those teachers [who] students will remember their whole lives," said Rahnuma Panthaky, a Dixie Canyon Community Charter parent. "His honesty, humor, big heart and love for what he does is truly palpable. He treats each of his fifth graders as individual humans, seeing them for who they are and meeting each one of them where they are at."

Panthaky said students and parents especially were touched that Dekermenjian shared his open-heart surgery and recovery as a classroom teaching moment.

"As opposed to shying away from telling the students, he chose to talk to them candidly about what was going on with his heart, what it means to have a bicuspid aortic valve, educating them beyond the basic anatomy of the human heart and turning it into engaging, informative, and often hilarious science lessons," she said.

For Dekermenjian, being voted Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher reaffirmed a decision he made five years ago to leave a career as a financial adviser to become a teacher.

"From Day 1, I really feel like I just I found my calling," he said. "I've never had a bad day. I always look forward to coming into work. It really doesn't feel like a job at all. So it just makes me really kind of feel blessed."

And he was grateful and proud to be the Kings representative for the award and especially was thrilled that Kings broadcaster and former player Daryl Evans and Bailey, the Kings mascot, attended the event Wednesday.

Hockey has been an important part of Dekermenjian's life, helping him assimilate when his family arrived in California from Beirut, Lebanon, when he was around 5 years old.

"When I moved to this country, I didn't speak in English, it was very difficult to make friends," he said. "And one day we looked outside, and the kids next door were playing street hockey, and my mom said, 'You know, why don't you go join them?' So I went out there and one of them was nice enough to lend me a stick and started playing. Through hockey I have way more confidence than I really ever should, I made a lot of friends, and it opened me up to so much."

Dekermenjian became a die-hard Kings fan when the team, led by Wayne Gretzky, reached the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. They lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the best-of-7 series 4-1. He's a longtime Kings season ticket holder who recently added more seats to his package.

He became a hockey player himself and started coaching roller hockey, where he met Thurman when he was younger, in the 1990s. Dekermenjian's sons, Ian and Oliver, play in the Little Kings program, and he has a cement rink in his backyard for them to practice and play.

"Hockey has taught me a lot as well in terms of perseverance, grit, you know, powering through and something that I bring into the classroom because inevitably regardless of how well you prepare these kids from an educational standpoint, they're going to struggle, there's going to be obstacles that they have to overcome," he said. "We throw this word 'grit' around quite a bit and you can learn ... that through sports, team building, things like that, so I'll routinely show clips of hockey games … and [show] them that even when your back's up against the wall or it doesn't look good for you, you power through it, keep your head down, there's always a chance."

The Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher program is part of the NHL and NHLPA's Future Goals initiative, which is funded by their joint Industry Growth Fund (IGF). Future Goals Hockey Scholar is a free online program that uses hockey to teach STEM concepts and inspire students to develop their STEM-based skills in a fun and engaging way.

Four million students at more than 22,100 schools across North America have received 7.58 million hours of learning through Future Goals since 2014.

Previous Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher winners include Joan Kilban (Boston Bruins, 2020); Donald Conaway, Jr. (Philadelphia Flyers, 2021); Carolyn Avery (Vegas Golden Knights, 2022); Michael Casella (New Jersey Devils, 2023) and Makeba Story (Carolina Hurricanes, 2024).