CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The list of South African-born players to reach the NHL is brief:
1. Olaf Kolzig
That's it. The longtime Capitals netminder was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to German parents and grew up in Canada. No South African skaters have played in the NHL, and none had even been drafted ... until this summer.
When the Penguins selected defenseman Harrison Brunicke from the WHL's Kamloops Blazers with their top pick in last month's draft at 44th overall, Brunicke became the first South African skater to be picked in the NHL draft.
Brunicke, 18, was born in Johannesburg to South African parents. His family moved to Calgary when he was two years old for his dad's work, business consulting with a company called Accenture. He and his family will still make the occasional trip back home to visit.
"All my family is there currently -- all my grandparents, aunts, cousins," Brunicke told me at Penguins development camp earlier this month at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. "You know, I'm FaceTiming them every couple of days and seeing what's up. So it's good to have that. ... (Moving to Canada) was a big culture shift, we're happy with where we landed. I wouldn't be here without them making that choice."
Brunicke was born in 2006, and so he was only three years old when Kolzig retired after 16 seasons with the Capitals and one final year with the Lightning. He doesn't remember any of it, but he's well aware of his countryman's legacy.
"Yeah, I know he played 17 seasons and was drafted by Washington, I think pretty high in the first round," Brunicke said. "It's great to see that, a fellow South African. It's pretty cool."
South Africa isn't exactly a hockey hotbed, but there is a presence. The men's national team is ranked 47th out of 58 countries on the IIHF rankings, and the women's national team ranks 35th of 46. The South African Ice Hockey Federation reports 175 registered male players, 129 female players and 240 junior-age players, with eight rinks for the country's population of over 60 million people. The men's and women's teams each compete in the Division III Group A World Championship, one of the lower-tiered annual tournaments.
When I was doing some research on Brunicke after the draft, my searches pulled up a number of social media posts and threads on the South African sub on Reddit, with a ton of South Africans celebrating the Brunicke pick, talking about how they wish their own kids could follow in his footsteps one day, or that he could one day represent the South African national team in a tournament. I asked if he's aware that he's become even just a small source of inspiration to others involved in hockey in his home country already.
"It's a great feeling," he said. "I'm more realizing it now. The (national) team has reached out to me, they're posting me on their social media, things like that. So that's pretty cool to see, and I'm staying in touch with them. Hopefully, down the road, I can go back and maybe do something with hockey, whatever it is. That'd be pretty cool."
JOE ZAK / PENGUINS
Harrison Brunicke in the Penguins' development camp in Cranberry, Pa.
Brunicke, a right-handed shot listed at 6 foot 3 and 196 pounds, describes himself as "a two-way defenseman. I like to be used in all situations, whether it's playing against top pairings or top lines, getting hemmed in your zone and playing defensive shifts, or trying to play up top and hemming teams in their zone and hemming them in offensively." His rebuilding Kamloops team ranked dead last in the WHL standings last season, but he had a solid season in an increased role. His 21 points (10 goals, 11 assists) in 49 games ranked second among Blazers defensemen, and his minus-12 rating was the third-best on the entire team among regular players.
Owen Pickering, who was on the same development camp team as Brunicke and sat near him in the locker room, recalled playing against Brunicke with his Swift Current Broncos this past season.
"He's a great player, a funny kid," Pickering said. "I was making fun of him because I scored that game on them and made sure he knew about it. But he actually had a play that game where he toe-dragged three of our guys back-to-back and didn't score. So, nobody ended up seeing that. But he's a really good kid, and he's a great player. He's big, skates well, so he'll fit in well. And obviously they draft good people, so he's no different."
Brunicke laughed and confirmed that he's been hearing the chirps from Pickering in camp -- "I didn't end up scoring, so yeah, that one hurt a little bit. But he reminds me that he scored that game."
Pickering and Brunicke were together frequently during drills throughout the camp, and served as a pairing for the four-on-four tournament on the final day. Their team pitched two shutouts an surrounded only a single goal to Brayden Yager in the championship.
"He's a great player," Pickering told me of Brunicke after the championship win. "He makes it really easy, he's easy to play with. He's a really good skater, he's big, he's a smart player too. He's good at getting out of things. It makes it easy to play with him."
Pickering is the Penguins' top left-handed prospect, and Brunicke plays on the right side. That could very well be a future pairing in the pros.
"I think we're a good pairing," Brunicke said. "Maybe down the road, you never know. He's a great player, a great person as well. He makes it easy for me."
JOE ZAK / PENGUINS
Harrison Brunicke in the Penguins' development camp in Cranberry, Pa.
Brunicke called the Penguins' development camp a valuable experience, calling it a competitive environment in which he "learned new things about myself, both on and off the ice." He'll likely get two more experiences with the Penguins before next season starts -- the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo, N.Y. in September, followed by the NHL training camp. But after that he'll be returned to the WHL, not quite being ready for NHL time but not yet being eligible for the AHL.
Brunicke is without a doubt the Penguins' new top right-handed defense prospect. Not counting Jack St. Ivany -- who is both a little too old and has a little too much NHL experience to count as a "prospect" any longer -- the Penguins had zero right-handed defense prospects in the system before using their top pick in this summer's draft on Brunicke.
He'll still have another two years in junior, and likely some AHL time after that, given that defensemen generally just take longer to develop. But Brunicke could end up being a key piece of this next generation of Penguins as they look to get younger over the next several years.
