The Tunisian Hockey Player: Ramzi Abid

posted on: Jun 25, 2021

By: Arab America Contributing Writer / Christian Jimenez

When people think of hockey players and the National Hockey League, they think of a sport with not much diversity.  However, that can’t be further from the truth as there are hockey players of Arab descent with the one of the most prominent ones being that of Ramzi Abid.  

Abid’s Youth and Early Career

Ramzi Abid is a Canadian national of Tunisian descent who was born on March 24, 1980 in Montreal, Quebec.  Even at an early age, Ramzi Abid always had an interest in sports, especially hockey.  This early fascination with hockey can be seen in 1994 where he would play in an international hockey tournament with kids 12 years old or younger, known as the Quebec International Pee-Wee Tournament. 

According to eliteprospects.com, Ramzi Abid is known as a physically strong player who has an energetic style of play. These physical traits along with his incredible hard-working attitude and consistency helped Abid rise through the ranks in hockey and toward the major leagues.  He would join a junior hockey team known as the Chicoutimi Saguenéens in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League based out of the Canadian city of Saguenay.  He would play with the Chicoutimi Saguenéens from 1996 to 1999 with his best year of play being his second season where he scored 50 goals and 85 assists.  Abid would later play for two other teams in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan in New Brunswick and the Halifax Mooseheads in Nova Scotia.  He would end his career with the league totaling around 155 goals and 237 assists according to hockeydb.com.  After leaving this league, he decided to continue playing in the professional leagues.

Abid with the NHL and AHL

Abid was selected as 28th pick overall of the 1998 National Hockey League (NHL) Entry Draft.  However, he would be subsequently re-drafted as the 85th pick by the Phoenix Coyotes in the year 2000. Abid would then go on to play for their affiliate team in the American Hockey League, the division below the NHL. This fact would make his first team in the professional leagues the Springfield Falcons, based in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he would play for three years, 2000 to 2003.  During this time, he would score 110 goals and 39 assists with the Falcons, with his best season being his sophomore season with 18 goals and 25 assists.  

During Abid’s short tenure with the Coyotes, he scored 10 goals and 8 assists but he would then be traded in that same season in March 2003 to a new team, the Pittsburgh Penguins.  It was also during this time that he suffered a torn ACL, which required surgery and caused him to miss the rest of the 2002-2003 season.  He would then subsequently play only around three games in that season and 16 games in the 2003-2004 season according to hockeydb.com.  He would eventually return to the AHL with the Penguins affiliate team during the 2004-2005 NHL lockout.  As a member of the team known as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, his stats totaled around 26 goals and 29 assists. He would then continue to play with the Atlanta Thrashers affiliate in the AHL known as the Chicago Wolves.  He was given the opportunity to play some games with the Atlanta Thrashers, but only 6 games and with the stats of only two assists.  After being in Atlanta, Abid would spend his final two seasons with the affiliate Milwaukee Admirals and their NHL equivalent, the Nashville Predators where he would make his first playoff debut in the Western Conference Quarterfinals against the San Jose Sharks on April 18, 2007.  

Abid’s Later Career

Abid would end his NHL career shortly after the postseason in 2007 with a total of 14 goals and 16 assists overall in his time in the NHL. Abid would find more success in Europe where he played in the National League with Bern SC in Switzerland, where he would have 20 goals and 11 assists, and 9 goals and 20 assists respectively from 2007 to 2009 according to hockeydb.com.  He would eventually play for other leagues such as the Kontinental League, the Swedish Hockey League, the ICE Hockey League, the Finnish Elite League, and the German Hockey League.  He would play hockey abroad for approximately seven years from 2007 to 2014.  His final stats would end up with 96 goals and 136 assists abroad, much better than what he achieved in the NHL. 
 

Along with his international play, he also played in country tournaments with Team Canada in the 2007 Spengler World Cup according to icehockey.fandom.com.  Despite hardships in the NHL due to injuries such as his torn ACL and not playing much in the NHL, he was a player who would never give up evident when he worked his way back after his first ACL tear and worked through another one not much later, on December 6, 2003.  Ramzi Abid is someone who will be remembered and inspire countless Arab and Muslim hockey players due to his tenacious personality and a pioneer as one of the first-ever Muslim players to play the sport of hockey.

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