FLINT, MICH. - His is the face that supposedly got Flint Firebirds coach John Gruden fired twice and, on Thursday, for the first time in his Ontario Hockey League career, Firebirds defenceman Hakon Nilsen opted to face media scrutiny.
Nilsen, 18, has been the face of this fiasco since it started — his father, Firebirds owner Rolf Nilsen and Sergei Kharin, the team’s director of hockey operations, were suspended by the OHL on Thursday, one day after Nilsen fired coach John Gruden and assistant coach David Karpa for the second time this season.
On the one hand, he’s just a kid, a teenager playing major junior hockey for the first time in his life.