Hockey 4 Youth founder Moezine Hasham, left, and Khaled Al Mouktaran, right, at the 2022 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic in Hamilton, Ont.
Khaled Al Mouktaran first heard about hockey when he and his family arrived in Canada as refugees from Syria. The then-14-year-old was checking into a shelter at a Toronto hotel in March 2016 with his parents and three siblings when the front desk receptionist mentioned the sport.
“I thought hockey was something to do with shoes you run around in,” Al Mouktaran recalls. “Like baseball or badminton or something like that. I never imagined hockey meant having to skate, on metal blades. That was out of my imagination.” READ MORE >