Pats’ Stringer has overcome obstacles in hockey career

Perseverance has helped Zack Stringer find success on the ice.

The most-recent example occurred this season, when he missed the start of the 2022-23 WHL campaign after tearing his Achilles tendon while running sprints up stairs in the off-season.

“It was like a pop kind of feeling. When you look back at it, it’s kind of gruesome and gross. It sucks,” the Regina Pats forward said.

“It’s one of those that could be a career-ender. I was glad to have the Regina staff and everybody in (my hometown of) Lethbridge to help me out there and get the right treatment and recovery programs going.

“What was going through my head was that my hockey career was over but I dealt with adversity and battled back. I’m here this year and trying to make the most of it.”

Regina Pats forward Zack Stringer. (File photo courtesy of Keith Hershmiller Photography)

His mom, Kyla Stringer, credits Zack’s ability to bounce back to his Haitian heritage and their resilience when times are tough.

“He’s always had that drive. It’s the Haitian perseverance in him. He is so knowledgeable about his culture and the history of that perseverance and even the contemporary events in Haiti and how Haitians are handling it on the ground,” Kyla said.

“I’m super-proud of him for having that be part of his life — the resilience in the face of racism.”

Stringer was just 18 months old when he was adopted from an orphanage in Haiti by Kyla and her husband, Ian Van Seters.

“It was quite a long ordeal. It took Ian and I two and a half years from start to finish to actually adopt Zack,” Kyla said. “It was scary because in Haiti at the time there had been a coup and a lot of information was coming out that all international adoptions were stopping because of that.

“We waited and we waited and we waited and we had this photo and a little profile of Zack and we hoped and prayed and with the support of Ian’s family and my family, we finally got Zack home.”

A sporting life

Stringer’s love of sports was apparent from an early age.

“He just had a soccer ball in his foot or a hockey stick in his hands and he was doing mini-sticks non-stop and the racket in the hallway was unbearable — it was amazing,” Kyla said.

But it was hockey where Stringer would excel the most.

“My dad was around hockey his whole life — just playing beer league and stuff like that — and my mom was a figure skater so I was always around the rink and stuff like that,” he said. “Me being black and being in the sport I am, it’s difficult. I seemed to do well in the sense there’s enough guys in the league that I can talk to and stuff.”

But one of his hockey idols — Van Seters — died in 2012.

“When he passed, hockey was going away from me a little bit but I was pretty young and fortunately I had a good team and great coaches to help me out. I played two days after he passed away and I think I scored, so just keeping a love of the game and keeping the love of him,” Zack said.

Stringer has also faced hardships on the ice growing up, especially with racism.

“The first and worst experience we ever had with that was pretty awful,” Kyla said. “It was really heartbreaking. Zack took it better than I did. A parent in the stands was screaming racist slurs at Zack and other parents sat around and watched it and listened to it happen.”

Zack wasn’t going to let that stop him from playing the sport he loved.

“I don’t think I ever wanted to quit because of how I was feeling or because I was the only black guy out there. (It was) more of a sense that, ‘I’m going to show them,’ ” Zack said.

Stringer was taken by his hometown Hurricanes in the first round (eighth overall) of the 2018 WHL draft. He played 79 games for the Hurricanes and recorded 52 points (17 goals, 35 assists) before he was traded to the Pats on Aug. 18, 2021 for the 10th overall pick in the next WHL draft.

“It was pretty weird. I was just at work in Lethbridge when I got the call,” said Stringer, who’s now 19. “It’s like any other trade. You deal with it how you deal with it.”

Stringer’s mom had a bit of a tougher time accepting her son was moving away from home for the first time.

“It really broke my heart,” Kyla said. “I’m a single mom to Zack and then he’s got a little brother and little sister who are 12 and 10 now, but their big brother was moving away and my oldest kid was moving away for the first time. It was just really really tough.

“I didn’t see him much that first year (in Regina). We were still dealing with the effects of the COVID pandemic and he got injured twice in a row and I couldn’t be there to support him in the way I wanted to be.”

Zack has dealt with a number of injuries since the trade and has only played in 36 games with Regina. He returned to the Pats’ lineup from his Achilles tear on Dec. 16 and has three points in those games, two coming in his last three games.

The Pats (21-19-1-1) find themselves trying to hold on to one of the final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.

“We’ve just got to start beating these top teams … now that we are all back and have a full three lines that can go and goaltending has been huge lately as well. (We’re) just getting back in the mode for a playoff push here,” Stringer said.

Kyla is proud of what her son has had to overcome in his young life.

“It’s pretty incredible when you think about it,” she said. “We don’t even know his birth story – he was born in a tiny village in Haiti and then comes home to Canada and succeeds in school and family life and in his community and sport where he really is a groundbreaker because most of the time he has been the only black kid on the team.

“He doesn’t shy away from that. He really owns his story and is proud of it and I’m happy for him for that.”