Color of Hockey: Ta'amu set to play 2nd season in WHL, prep for NHL Draft

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Alofa Tunoa “Noa” Ta’amu, a defenseman for Edmonton of the Western Hockey League and member of the U.S. Under-18 Men’s Select team that won the Hlinka Gretzky Cup tournament for the first time since 2003.

Alofa Tunoa “Noa” Ta’amu has taken his father on an unexpected journey.

Ed Ta’amu, a native Hawaiian and a 335-pound former offensive lineman who was a Minnesota Vikings fourth-round NFL draft pick in 2002, figured his son would follow him into football.

“But his (maternal) grandpa is Canadian and introduced him to hockey,” said the elder Ta’amu, who played for the Vikings and Houston Texans, as well as in the Arena Football League. “I just waited for the day when my son was like, ‘I'm done playing hockey, let's go play football.’ But that day never came. He tried football freshman year in high school, but that that was it. He just kept running with hockey.”

It’s been quite a run for the 17-year-old defenseman from San Diego, who goes by Noa.

He was a member of the United States Under-18 Men’s Select team that won a gold medal at the 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup in Trencin, Slovakia. The 5-3 win against Sweden on Aug. 16 gave the U.S. its first championship in the tournament since 2003, and Noa had one assist in five games in his international hockey debut.

“I thought the experience was unbelievable,” Noa said. “We came into the tournament not projected to be the best. We stuck to the game plan and came out with it. We had a great group of guys and we had pretty good team chemistry, and I think that really helped us.”

A product of the Los Angeles Jr. Kings program, Noa (6-foot-2, 229 pounds) had six points (one goal, five assists) in 43 games as a rookie with Edmonton of the Western Hockey League last season after the team chose him with the No. 3 pick in the league’s 2023 U.S. Priority Draft.

“I think my first season I had my lows, I had my highs,” he said. “My highs were definitely later in the season. I think once we made our U.S. road trip [Oct. 25-Nov. 2] I kind of got to know the guys more, kind of bonded that way. And by the end of the season, I was really close with everyone and got more comfortable on the team.”

It was a similar pattern at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. Rod Braceful, director of player personnel for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program and general manager for the U.S. at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup , said Noa improved as the tournament progressed and the competition became tougher.

“His impact in the tournament wasn’t about points,” Braceful said. “It was about shutting down the other team’s top players and killing penalties, and we had a couple of games where we got into penalty trouble.”

Noa, who turns 18 on May 28, said he hopes to carry over his play from the Hlinka Gretzky Cup into Edmonton this season and position himself for the 2026 NHL Draft. The team opens its season at Red Deer on Sept. 19 under new coach Jason Smith, a former Edmonton Oilers captain (2001-07) who played for five NHL teams from 1993-2009.

“I think it just gives me a little more confidence coming into the season with the gold medal under my belt,” Noa said. “I think it'll help me just be more confident on the ice ... make more plays, and I think we'll have fun this year.”

Ed Ta’amu enjoys watching his son excel in a sport he wasn’t very familiar with during his football-playing days until he attended a WHL game when he was playing for Spokane of the Arena Football League in 2006. Now he and Noa’s mother, Jessica Scott, rarely miss their son’s games. They moved to Edmonton when Noa joined the Oil Kings, though Ta’amu returns regularly to California to help coach football at La Costa Canyon High School.

“I guess it opened me and my family on the Samoan side up to a whole new world,” he said. “I mean, we would have never guessed in 100 years that we'd be going to hockey games. And just even for him to represent the country, the red, white and blue internationally. There's nothing like that in football until recently when they added the flag football to Olympics (for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics).”

Ta’amu said his son becoming a hockey player allows him to keep bragging rights as the best football player in the family. He recalled that Noa once returned an interception 70 yards for a touchdown as a lineman in his lone season of high school football.

“I’m, like, ‘There’s no way my kid’s better than me in hockey and football,’” he said.

Noa said he laughs when his father boasts about shutting him out when he donned goalie gear for a parent vs. player squirt game in San Diego.

“Well, he kind of takes up the whole net,” he said. “It was kind of hard to score on him when I was young and I could barely lift the puck.”