Zach Hyman scored his 50th goal of the season Tuesday, becoming the first Jewish NHL player to reach the milestone. Photo by Chris Tanouye/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images

By Louis Keene March 27, 2024

Zach Hyman’s first 50-goal season was supposed to be a heartwarming story. And it was: At age 31, the Edmonton Oilers winger became the first Jewish hockey player to reach the half-century mark, and the third-oldest NHL player to crack it for the first time.

“This is a milestone that I don’t think anybody thought I would ever get to when I started my career,” Hyman said after the game. “And I got to it, which is pretty crazy, honestly.”

How a guy who was never among the league’s top talents did it depends on who you ask. Hyman’s teammates and the hockey press used the moment to praise his work ethic and grit. 

The former fifth round pick — he was never considered an elite talent — also acknowledged that playing alongside perennial MVP candidate Connor McDavid greatly helped. (As we’d expect of any NJB, he thanked his parents as well.)

But one hockey commentator was eager to provide another explanation: Hyman came from an “insanely rich” family. 

“This might make some people upset, but miss me with the Zach Hyman story right now,” said Andrew Berkshire, an independent NHL podcaster with 25,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter), in a four-minute video he posted Tuesday. “This is a person who has had every single possible advantage to get where they are today.”

“Let’s be real here,” he added. “Hard work, ‘stick-to-it-iveness,’ that isn’t the story.”

Berkshire’s video had been viewed 6.1 million times as of Wednesday, according to X’s metrics, and — before you get into a tizzy over antisemitic dogwhistling — was roundly derided in thousands of replies. As many people pointed out, the NHL is full of athletes who had wealthy upbringings because hockey is an expensive sport: Ice time, equipment and training all cost money. (One-percenters are gradually filling out the ranks of the NBA and MLB, too.)

Even by those standards, the investment of Hyman’s father Stuart, a Toronto-based real estate mogul, was unusually significant. According to the Toronto Star, Zach only ever played for junior hockey league teams owned by his dad on the way to college and ultimately the NHL. “Hockey has not been faced with the likes of Stuart Hyman before,” said John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League, where Stuart somehow purchased 90(!) teams. 

Still, one message board commenter called Berkshire’s video a “freezing cold take.”

Under attack from NHL Twitter, Berkshire got defensive, insisting that he wasn’t taking away from Hyman’s achievement and he never said money was the only factor. Eventually he posted a nine-minute video in which he expressed regret that his hockey analysis and his media criticism got entangled, and admitted, “I didn’t communicate everything perfectly.”

Growing up in a mostly secular Jewish household in Toronto, Hyman attended Jewish schools through high school, where he met his future wife. He won gold representing Canada in Israel at the 2013 Maccabi Games. And he wears number 18, which signifies life in Judaism, for the Oilers.

Undeterred by — and possibly unaware of — the discourse surrounding his achievement, Hyman scored his 51st goal Tuesday, an overtime game-winner. It was also the 200th goal of his career.

As the Jewish sports podcast “Menschwarmers” put it, “Living well is the best revenge.”

Hyman isn’t the only Jewish hockey player who made history this week. The New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin became the first Jew to tally 100 points (goals and assists) in a single season on Tuesday.

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