New Delhi: Actor Huma Qureshi took to social media Sunday to share her experience of dropping the ceremonial puck before North America’s National Hockey League game between San Jose Sharks and Minnesota Wild Saturday evening.
“Such an honour to be the first Indian woman to ‘drop the ceremonial puck’ before an Ice Hockey game,” the actor wrote on Instagram. She added, “This will forever be special!”
National Hockey League (NHL), is a professional ice hockey league comprising 32 teams — 25 from the US and seven from Canada. The ceremony that Qureshi led is a ritual to drop the puck — disc used to play the game — to mark the start of the game and end of the pre-game activities.
The games are played over three 20-minute periods. A regular season takes place between October and April, where each team plays 82 games — 41 at home and 41 away.
The host team, San Jose Sharks, also conducted their annual celebration of South Asian Culture throughout Saturday, both before and during the game. The celebrations began with Holi festivities in the morning, outside the SAP center where the match was held.
Additional pre-game activities included festive dancing and live vocal performances
Last year, during the celebration, former ice hockey player Robin Bawa had presided over the ceremony.
San Jose Sharks had then tweeted, “It’s Indian Heritage Group Night at the Tank! We started the celebration off with 17-year-old Shravya Anjaria singing the National Anthem and former #SJSharks forward Robin Bawa dropping the ceremonial first puck. Bawa was the first Indian player to appear in the NHL”.
This year around, the host team, while thanking Huma Qureshi for joining, took to Twitter and wrote, “Actress, model, and producer, Huma Qureshi dropped the puck for our Celebration of South Asian Culture ceremonial puck drop tonight!. Thanks for joining us Huma Qureshi.”
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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