Sports
Color of hockey: Sparks hopes extended travel leads to NHL Draft selection
The state is not known as a hockey hotbed. Only two NHL players were born there: Guyle Fielder, born in Potlatch and raised in Saskatchewan, and Pat Shea, another Potlatch native.
Fielder played 15 regular season and playoff games for the Chicago Black Hawks (1950-51), Detroit Red Wings (1952-53 and 1957-58) and Boston Bruins (1953-54) and did not register a point.
But the forward had a stellar minor league career and is among the all-time top players in professional hockey after playing 27 seasons, including 21 seasons in the old WHL. Fielder died on February 21, 2026, at the age of 95.
Shea, a defenseman, had one assist in 10 games with the Black Hawks in 1931-32.
Sparks’ parents knew little about the sport their sons were so passionate about, even though they both have athletic backgrounds. Nate Sparks, a native of Bakersfield, California, was a quarterback for British Columbia of the Canadian Football League in 2000 and at Boise State University in 1997 and 1998.
Debbie Sparks, a Minnesotan of Chinese, Swedish and Norwegian descent, was a gymnast at Boise State.
The couple found a local hockey program, enrolled their boys and then started educating themselves about the sport.
“The first thing I did when my kids started playing was I bought the rule book,” Nate Sparks said, “so I could learn what was going on when the referee kept blowing the whistle because I didn’t know what was happening. Then I tried to learn to skate on my own.”
He also became the boys’ coach, relying on his football expertise and hockey training tips that he would glean from Google searches.
“Oh yeah, we did a lot of parachute training where the kids would skate up and down the street with their parachutes, whether it was windy or not, probably 100 or 200 yards,” Nate Sparks said. “I had them turn tires, old football workouts I had to do, lots of hurdle jumps, plyometrics. All the off-ice things I knew how to do to help me get stronger, I incorporated them into their off-ice workouts.”
Tyus Sparks played minor hockey for the Idaho Jr. Steelheads. As his skills progressed, his family had to decide what to do to continue improving him.
“My skill level at that time was higher than all the other kids, so we had to branch out a little bit and go to different places to play,” Tyus Sparks said.
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