Akim Aliu

Early life

Akim Aliu was born in Okene, Nigeria and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine. His father Tai, a Nigerian, met his mother Larissa, a Ukrainian, while studying at a Kyiv university on a track and field scholarship. Aliu has a brother named Edward. He identifies as Ukrainian–Canadian and says his family follows Ukrainian traditions; he would have played for Ukraine’s national team if given the chance and still speaks Ukrainian at home.

After the Soviet Union fell, his parents grew uneasy with the political situation and moved the family to Canada when Aliu was seven, settling near Toronto. They faced financial hardship at first while his father trained to become a computer programmer. When he arrived in Canada, Aliu knew only Ukrainian and Russian, no English, and had never played hockey. His first skates came from a garage sale, and he joined a house league in Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood.

He showed natural skill, and within a few years he was selected in the first round of the Ontario Hockey League draft by the Windsor Spitfires.

Playing career

Early in his first Ontario Hockey League season in 2005–06, Akim Aliu had a practice altercation with Steve Downie. Downie cross-checked Aliu in the face, knocking out seven of his teeth. After receiving medical treatment, Aliu came back onto the ice and fought Downie. The root of the conflict was Aliu’s refusal to take part in a hazing ritual that would have required him and other rookies to stand naked in a small bus washroom.

News of the fight and its cause spread internationally, and it damaged Aliu’s relationship with his Windsor Spitfires teammates. The league suspended Downie for five games and Aliu for one; both players requested trades. Spitfires coach and general manager Moe Mantha received a 40-game coaching ban and a one-year suspension as GM, and the team was fined $35,000. In 2020, Aliu shared more about his time with the Spitfires, saying he believed Downie targeted him for abuse in this and earlier incidents because of Aliu’s racial and ethnic background.

After the incident, Windsor traded Aliu to the Sudbury Wolves. Because OHL rules prevented trading 16-year-olds, he had to sit out two months. That season he played 47 games, scoring 10 goals and 10 assists. He remained a controversial figure in the league, serving a ten-game suspension early in 2006–07, yet an early-season scouting update ranked him as the fifth-best prospect for the 2007 NHL draft.

He missed the last two regular-season games for disciplinary reasons but returned for the playoffs, playing 21 games as the Wolves reached the finals, where they lost to the Plymouth Whalers. Heading into the draft, Aliu had a reputation as a difficult player to manage. Despite his high early ranking, he dropped to the second round, where the Chicago Blackhawks picked him 56th overall. After the draft, he vowed that teams would regret passing on him.

He stayed in junior hockey for the 2007–08 season but was traded to the London Knights. That turned out to be his best junior year, with 61 points in 60 games.

Once his junior season ended, he played his first two professional games with Chicago’s AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. He was sent back to junior for 2008–09, and midway through that season he was traded back to Sudbury. Splitting the year between the two teams, he recorded 42 points in 45 games.

Did You Know?

• Aliu's first pair of skates was purchased at a garage sale after he moved to Canada at age 7.
• Aliu scored his first two NHL goals and was named the game's first star on April 7, 2012, in a 5–2 win over the Anaheim Ducks.
• On November 25, 2019, Aliu publicly alleged that then-Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters directed racial epithets at him while coaching the AHL's Rockford IceHogs; Peters resigned four days later.
• Aliu co-founded the Hockey Diversity Alliance with Evander Kane on June 8, 2020.