Interview with Jim Kyte

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Kyte a week ago. Kyte played 13 years in the NHL and was the first legally deaf player and only one to date.

We talked about his hearing impairment and how he was able to overcome countless obstacles to have a rather illustrious professional hockey career. From his career-ending car accident to playing in Las Vegas, Kyte opened up about his time in the hockey world.

This is the best from our conversation.

With all due respect, with the hearing disability you already had to deal with, why were you a fighter?

"I’m a big guy. But I never fought until I got to Major Junior A when somebody attacked me. I guess the short answer is: It’s better to give than receive.

It came with the territory. I fought because it came with my role on the team. I never thought of myself as the enforcer. I played a regular shift when I was in Winnipeg. We were the number one penalty kill in the league.

Back then, we were playing in the Smythe Division. So you had Marty McSorley, Tim Hunter and Tiger Williams. And we’d play them a lot because of the schedule. And there really wasn’t anyone on the Jets, other than Paul MacLean, that could protect their fellow teammates. There wasn’t an instigator rule back then, so I wanted to make sure that if Marty McSorley was running around trying to instigate something, if he was going to fight someone, he would fight me.

I was kind of a lone ranger in Winnipeg, but it came with the role. And being a very physical, I would break two or three sticks a game because standing in front of my net was a high rent zone. You had to really pay the price. I feel badly for the defensemen today because you’ve got guys like Gallagher or Brad Marchand. They wouldn’t survive in my day, but now you can’t touch them or else you’ll get a penalty."

What were some of the strategies you used to help cope with your hearing disability?

"I don’t know what I’m missing because I wasn’t born with perfect hearing. All I know is what I’ve had to do to compete with people that could hear. Overall I’ve always been very visual. I’m a visual learner. Really early in minor hockey, I never went first in line. I always went third or fourth and watched the other kids do it first. But the higher level you play, any team sport, the more important communication becomes.

I developed a very positional game. I became a student of all the systems that our team and coach were using. In the NHL, it’s so fast, so you don’t have the luxury or time to be able to make decisions. You get the puck, you turn, you see option one, and if he’s not there you look for option two and if it’s not there, you either eat the puck, protect it or it’s off the glass and out of the zone.

Going back for the puck, the goalie usually puts his hand in the air, and he definitely did for me to let me know if it was icing or not. Since I’m coming back down the ice and (the goalie) is looking up the ice, I would train the goalie and tell him ‘listen, you can see behind me, and if it’s icing, then great, but if it’s not, point to one side or the other to let me know which way I should turn with the puck.'

When you start playing Major Junior A and up, they clean the glass before every game. So when you go back for the puck, you don’t look through the glass into the stands, you look at the glass and you get a mirror-like reflection. You can see the player behind you forechecking.

I did a ton of talking. I was always directing people. Being very positional, I always knew where to be. I was a defensive defenseman, so I was usually matched with a more offensive defenseman.

I wasn’t shy about asking the coach. There’s only so much that I can do, so I literally trained the coach. So, like when I was a student I’d tell the teacher ‘you can’t turn your back on me and write on the board and talk at the same time. I’ll hear you, but I won’t understand what you’re saying. I’ll hear la la la la. Because I can read lips.’”

No one was more surprised than I was when I was a first round draft pick three years in a row.

On career-ending car accident and writing for the Ottawa Citizen:

"My career was ended by a car accident. I was the victim of a car accident. Somebody ran a stop sign and my car flipped three times. I woke up to the firemen breaking me out of the car. Didn’t break anything, but I had severe post-concussion symptoms, so I spent about two years on the couch recuperating. As far as that, my rehabilitation, I started to write. The Ottawa Citizen found out that I was writing for a blog called Sport Faculty and they asked me if I’d write for them. So I wrote a column for four years called the Point Man. I’d talk anywhere from the NHL to outdoor hockey.

If you came into my home, you would have never known I’d played hockey. Now, if you go into my peers’ (houses), it’s like walking into a hall of fame. But my jerseys were way in a corner. I just felt that hockey was over and I have to move on."

On being able to do a great amount of charity work for hearing impaired kids:

****Kyte co-founded the Canadian Hearing Impaired Hockey Association in 1986 and a year later on started the Jim Kyte Hockey School for the Hearing Impaired****

"I’m very proud of that. We were able to run the hockey school for eight years. (during NHL career) 

I focused on the 7 to 17-year-olds and many of those kids went to go on to play for the Canadian National Deaf team in the Deaf Olympics.

The legacy is there.

It cost about $100,000 to put the school on and we flew the kids in across Canada and we put them up. We had two years in Toronto, two years in Winnipeg and three years in Ottawa. Everyone volunteered for it. No one got paid. It was all about covering the expenses for it.

It’s right up there. I’m very proud of the school. I’m very proud on the impact it’s had on a number of kids. You see the kids that went to the school, some of them have kept in contact with you and you see what they’re doing now."

On playing in Vegas and why the NHL won't happen in Nevada:

"I was captain of the team and we had the best record in pro hockey in 93-94. The second year I was there, it was the lockout. After my first year there, I had some offers to go back to the NHL, but with the lockout happening, if I signed anywhere, I would’ve been locked out.

During the lockout year we had (Radek) Bonk, Manon Rhéaume and Alexei Yashin.

We were very heavily involved in the community. So the Las Vegas Thunder fans, they weren’t hockey fans, they were Thunder fans. So when I left, the new owners, they brought in all these Russian players and no one could relate to them and the attendance went down. They couldn’t communicate very well, they couldn’t do too much in the community and there’s a big distinction between a hockey fan and a fan of a team.

With the population, it’s exploded, so it could be an NHL market. But because of the heavy gambling, I would be very surprised if any major league sport opens up a franchise in Las Vegas. For the players, and the influence that gambling can have.

It’s a 24/7 town. Everywhere you go you hear ding ding ding. And it’s not just in the casinos. It’s in the corner stores. The gyms are open 24 hours a day because everyone’s on shift work. The town hardly ever sleeps. When I played in Winnipeg, no one, not even my parents, came to see me. When I played in Las Vegas and San Jose, everyone came to see me. I have three boys and they were all born in Las Vegas."

Bonus -- side story on Fred Shero:

"Fred Shero, the former coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, said he wanted more commitment from his players. He used to say ‘the difference between a good team and a great team is between the ham and the eggs. The chicken makes the contribution, but the pig makes commitment. I want your commitment.’"