Hockey player Nigel Dawes is well known to many sports fans from the CIS countries. From 2011 to 2018, he played in the Kazakh club "Barys", and now plays for the Yekaterinburg team "Avtomobilist". Nigel Dawes is a Canadian. However, in 2016 he received a passport of Kazakhstan and the opportunity to represent the hockey team of this country at international tournaments.
Early biography and career in North America
Date of birth Nigel Daws - February 9, 1985, place of birth - the Canadian city of Winnipeg. It is known that his mother (her name is Barbara) was an athlete, she was engaged in speed skating. And it was she who taught her son to skate when he was only three years old.
In 2001, Nigel was recruited into the Kootenay Ice Club, playing in the WHL (one of the three major junior hockey leagues in Canada). Over three seasons (2001/2002, 2002/2003 and 2003/2004), Nigel Daws played 219 games for this club, scored 123 goals and made 103 assists. These results allowed him to achieve the title of the best sniper "Kootenay Ice". Moreover, together with this club, he became the champion of the WHL.
At some point, the talented guy was noticed by the NHL scouts, and eventually Dawes was drafted by the New York Rangers. However, at first he was sent to the Rangers' farm club - Hartford Wolf Pack, which does not play in the NHL, but in another, less prestigious North American league - the AHL.
And it was the management of the Hartford Wolf Pack, after four test matches, who offered Dawes his first professional contract in his life. It was signed on September 1, 2004.
Only after a couple of seasons at Hartford was Nigel given a real chance to make his NHL debut with the Rangers. And he scored the first goal for this club on October 21, 2006 in a meeting with the Toronto Maple Leafs (the meeting, by the way, ended in a victory for the New York Rangers - 5: 4). But in total that season, Nigel did not play for the Rangers so much - only 8 games. In particular, he went on the ice in the sixth match of the Eastern Conference semifinals, in which the Rangers fought the Buffalo Sabers. But this match did not turn out very well for Dawes: one of the pucks ended up in the gates of the New York Rangers after a rebound from him (he was trying to block the opponent's throw). As a result, the Rangers lost in this meeting.
After that, Dawes was sent to the farm team for a while. But then he was still able to return to the Rangers again. In the 2007/2008 regular season, he played 61 matches for this New York club and became the author of 14 goals. And 4 of them - against Martin Brodeur, goalkeeper of the New Jersey Devils. In addition, Dawes was one of New York's key shootouts that season. Four of the seven shootouts he played ended in a goal.
Interestingly, in the playoffs, Nigel also showed himself well: he took part in 10 matches and scored 2 goals in them. Strictly speaking, the 2007/2008 season was his most successful during his appearances for the Rangers.
In July 2008, Nigel signed a new contract with the New York club in the amount of 587.5 thousand dollars. This contract was designed for one year. However, in the midst of the season, Dawes was assigned to another NHL club, the Phoenix Coyotes. A year later, he moved from Phoenix to Calgary Flames, and then defended the colors of the Atlanta Thrashers and Montreal Canadiens.
Unfortunately, in Montreal, he received little playing time (for the most part, he generally played for the farm club - Hamilton Bulldogs). And this situation pushed Dawes to important changes: he decided to cross the ocean and test his strength in the Continental Hockey League (KHL).
Nigel Dawes in Barys and Avtomobilist
On May 31, 2011, Dawes signed a contract with Barys, a club from Kazakhstani Astana (by the way, now this city is called Nur-Sultan). And in the new place, Nigel played just brilliantly, and quite quickly entered the pool of the best players in the league.
On February 22, 2013, he was marked by a kind of record - in just 26 minutes he scored as many as four goals against HC Traktor (Chelyabinsk) in the first round of the KHL playoffs. This allowed Nigel to become the first Canadian in the KHL to score more than three goals in one match.
In 2015, he took part in the KHL All-Star Game for the first time. However, subsequently, Dawes played several more times in similar matches - in 2016, in 2017, in 2018 and in 2019.
On November 1, 2017, Nigel Does became the first striker in KHL history to chalk up 10 hat-tricks. And in general, at the end of the 2017/2018 season, he was recognized as the best sniper in the league.
In April 2018, the hockey player announced that he decided to leave Barys. Dawes' new club is Avtomobilist from Yekaterinburg, also playing in the KHL. In the 2019/2020 season, he still plays for this club. Moreover, at the moment Dawes is acting as captain of the Avtomobilist.
Performances for the national teams of Canada and Kazakhstan
In 2004 and 2005, Nigel Daws, as a member of the Canadian youth team, participated in the world championships. At the 2004 World Cup, he topped the top scorer rating of the tournament (that is, he scored the most points on the goal-plus-pass system - scored six goals and made five assists) and took silver with the team. And in 2005, the Canadian national team won gold at all (although Nigel himself did not perform so well - he managed to score only two goals at his own expense).
In 2016, Nigel, along with two other Canadian hockey players - Brandon Bochensky and Dustin Boyd, received Kazakhstani citizenship and the right to play for the national team of this country. And over the next two years he took part in many matches of this team. In particular, when Kazakhstan fought in Group A of the First Division for reaching the finals of the 2017 World Cup.
At the same time, it must be admitted that, for some reason, Nigel Daws' performances for this team have stopped.
Interesting facts about the famous hockey player
Nigel Daws is married. Casey's wife, when he played for Barys, lived with her husband in Astana. Now the Daws family lives in Yekaterinburg. It's also worth noting that Casey and Nigel have a son named Benson. He was born in 2015.
It is known that Nigel has two siblings named Jeremy and Troy.
The height of the hockey player is 172 centimeters.
Nigel Daws has no college education. Right after school, he started playing hockey professionally. This, as Daws himself said in an interview, took up a lot of his time, and therefore he decided not to go to university.
