- Philippines Fil-Nation Select is icing U12 and U16 teams at the Amerigol LATAM Cup for the first time
- Tim Stapleton, the first NHL player of Filipino descent, is in Florida helping coach them
- Read below for what Stapleton and the Fil-Nation families said about the sport’s growth
Tim Stapleton played 118 games in the NHL and had no idea he was making history the whole time.
Eight years after he retired, the former Maple Leafs, Thrashers and Jets center is in Coral Springs, Florida, helping coach the first teams of Filipino heritage to skate at the Amerigol LATAM Cup. Stapleton told NHL.com’s William Douglas what the week has shown him.
“I didn’t know there was that many Filipino hockey players, to be honest. It’s pretty cool to see.”
Nobody told Stapleton he was the first NHL player of Filipino descent until after he hung them up in 2018.
“I was surprised. People usually say it was Mathew Dumba or Jason Robertson.”
Philippines Fil-Nation Select entered Under-12 and Under-16 squads at the LATAM Cup, which opened Saturday at the Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs and the Palm Beach Skate Zone in Wellington and runs through Sunday. Players came in from all over the United States and Canada, some from as far as Calgary.
Here is Amerigol’s own post on the 2026 event:
Jonathan de Castro, a former coach of the Philippines men’s national team, built the group after five years of conversations with tournament founder Juan Carlos Otero. He explained what finally pushed him to pull the trigger.
“I was like, you know what, I think now is the time. Now is the time to do it because I saw the numbers on the youth level rising, which tells me that we can create legitimately a path to development.”
More than 1,500 players from 16 countries and territories are skating this year, a list that runs from Algeria and Armenia to Lebanon, Pakistan and Indigenous/First Nation tribes. Sled hockey made its own tournament debut over the weekend.
Watch the NHL’s Spanish-language account run through the day two rivalry games:
Ask the Fil-Nation parents which NHL player their kids point to and one name comes up first. Nick Nieva, whose son Mason skates on the U12 team out of Los Angeles, named him without hesitating.
“All over in places like Toronto and California there are a lot of Filipino hockey players. One of the big heroes for a lot of us is Jason Robertson, who plays for the Dallas Stars.”
Robertson’s younger brother Nicholas, dealt to Pittsburgh by Toronto on July 1, and Kings defenseman Cody Ceci are also of Filipino descent. Philippine hockey itself joined the IIHF in May 2016, and the men’s national team sits 53rd in the world rankings.
Rike Walters, a 12-year-old goalie with the Arizona Jr. Coyotes, described what the week has felt like from inside the crease.
“I feel like I’m representing something, it’s fun.”
De Castro wants to connect the Fil-Nation teams with the Federation of Ice Hockey League in the Philippines and turn this week into an actual development pipeline.
