Color of Hockey: Smereck keeping NHL dream alive with strong 3ICE showing

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 Jalen Smereck, a former defenseman in the Arizona Coyotes organization who is playing for 3ICE Tennessee in the professional 3-on-3 tournament at Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale through Aug. 14.

Being a defenseman in the high-scoring, fast-paced 3ICE tournament is a seemingly impossible job, but Jalen Smereck doesn’t mind.

“When you can play hockey in South Florida in July and August, there's not much to complain about,” the 28-year-old Detroit native said.

Smereck, who played for Toledo of the ECHL last season, is thriving as the lone defenseman on the roster for Tennessee in the eight-team, 3-on-3 professional tournament that began July 17 and concludes Aug. 14 with the Patrick Cup Championship at Baptist Health IcePlex, the Florida Panthers practice facility in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Smereck has four points (one goal, three assists) in four games for 3ICE Tennessee. Coach John LeClair said he leans on Smereck for his defensive prowess as much as his scoring touch in games where action is nearly nonstop with games consisting of two eight-minute halves and a running clock.

The teams are coached by NHL legends: LeClair; Ray Bourque, 3ICE Boston; Guy Carbonneau, 3ICE Dallas; Ken Daneyko, 3ICE New York/New Jersey; Grant Fuhr, 3ICE Chicago; Joe Mullen, 3ICE Pittsburgh; Larry Murphy, 3ICE Minnesota; and Pierre Turgeon, 3ICE Buffalo.

“Three-on-three games are a little different than the 5-on-5 game, and I was really impressed about how quicky he figured it out,” said LeClair, who won the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993, scored at least 50 goals for three consecutive seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers (1995-98) and was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.

“It's hard to shut people down in 3ICE, obviously, it’s more of an offensive league,” LeClair said. “But having somebody back, making it a little more difficult on the 2-on-1 ... it’s a lot easier playing a 2-on-1 against a forward than a 'D' who is comfortable back there.

"But the biggest thing with Jalen is that he knows how to transition to offense right away. When a forward gets it, they’re thinking offense, but I don’t think they’re looking in the right areas. Jalen sees the transition game really well, and with 3-on-3 there’s a lot of transition. When you get the puck, you’ve got to go. We’re not sweeping back and doing a lot of setting up. We want quick attacks, and Jalen’s good at that.”

Smereck said 3ICE fits his style of play. He led all Toledo defensemen with 46 points (eight goals, 38 assists) in 70 games last season and was the highest-scoring player at the position in the Kelly Cup Playoffs (14 points; three goals, 11 assists in 20 games). Toledo lost the best-of-7 league finals to Trois-Rivieres in five games.

“Being in those 3-on-3 situations in overtimes throughout my career and doing it in practice, I love it,” Smereck said. “I liked at the end of our first game he (LeClair) said, ‘Hey, I might need you to stay out there a little longer because you’re the only defenseman.' That’s always been my game, getting extra ice whenever I can, staying out there to play defense to win a game or provide offense to win a game.”

Smereck led ECHL defensemen in points and assists (71 points; 14 goals, 51 assists) and power-play points (32) in 70 games with Cincinnati in 2023-24. He also helped make history on March 30, 2024, when he and forwards Kyle Bollers, Josh Burnside and Elijah Gonsalves and defenseman Landon Cato formed what is believed to be the first all-Black starting five in North American professional hockey.

Smereck has bounced between the ECHL and the American Hockey League since he signed a three-year entry level contract with the Arizona Coyotes on Oct. 6, 2016, after going undrafted by NHL teams while playing for Oshawa of the Ontario Hockey League. He played three seasons for Arizona’s ECHL affiliates in Norfolk and Rapid City and its American Hockey League team in Tucson.

Those stints are part of a pro hockey journey that also includes stops in Fort Wayne, Cincinnati and Toledo of the ECHL, San Jose of the AHL, Bietigheim of Germany’s Deutsche Eishockey Liga and Donbass Donetsk of the Ukrainian Hockey League.

The son of a hockey coach and an alum of Little Caesars and Oakland Grizzles youth hockey programs in Detroit, Smereck hopes to reach the NHL; a free agent, he hopes a strong 3ICE showing will generate interest from NHL or AHL teams.

“I'm still just chasing the dream,” he said. “I want to play in the NHL one day. I want to make myself a full time AHL player. I still love the game very much and I have a lot of passion for it.’

Smereck also remains passionate about his home city and state. He helps coach and mentor young players in the city and he auctioned off one of his Tucson jerseys in 2021 to benefit Detroit Ice Dreams, a nonprofit youth hockey organization that makes ice hockey more accessible and affordable for children from underrepresented communities.

He was active with the Flint Inner-City Youth Hockey Program when he played for Flint of the Ontario Hockey League from 2016-18. The program was founded in the Rust Belt city in 2010 by Rico Phillips, a retired Flint firefighter who received the NHL Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award in 2019.

Away from the rink, he and a friend began an initiative in 2019 in which they packed sandwiches and snacks in Ziploc bags and distributed them to less fortunate Detroiters. In 2018, he founded "NotMeYou," which benefits families in inner-city Detroit while getting them interested in hockey.

“I've always wanted to be able to be in a position to where I could give back to the community,” Smereck said. “I also always wanted to be a cop to, you know, kind of serve and protect my community if I didn’t make it as an athlete. Being able to give back, if I can put a smile on someone else's face and make sure they have a good day, it makes me have a good day myself.”

Jason McCrimmon, founder of Detroit Ice Dreams and a friend of Smereck's, praises the defenseman’s commitment to the city.

“The city of Detroit, we get so much flak about it being a bad city, an underdog city,” said McCrimmon, a 2023 Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award recipient. “But the city is always striving and it’s a space where there’s a lot of superheroes here who don’t wear capes. He does a lot of stuff that’s under the radar that’s huge for the game of hockey and for people. Period.”