Vukie Mpofu said he knew after one season in the Western Hockey League that he wouldn’t achieve his dream of becoming an NHL player.
“I had a chance to play with Haydn Fleury and against guys like Leon Draisaitl and Sam Reinhartso I got to see up close and personal what NHL players look like,” said Mpofu, who played 65 games for Red Deer in 2013-14. “After that season, not getting drafted. [by an NHL team]I realized, ‘OK, it’s probably a long shot for me to make the NHL as a player.'”
Rather than being discouraged, Mpofu found a different path to the NHL. The 26-year-old former right wing is in his second season as manager of hockey operations and legal affairs for the Los Angeles Kings.
He’s involved in player contract negotiations, manages salary cap and collective bargaining issues, and works with the Kings analytics staff. He also does legal work for Anschutz Entertainment Group, the Kings’ parent company, and employment contracts for the Kings and the staff of Ontario, their American Hockey League affiliate.
“The first things you saw when he came into our program was youth and energy,” Kings director of player personnel Nelson Emerson said. “He comes in and brings that passion and energy that we wanted from him and thought we’d get out of him. It’s been that way since Day One.”
At the 2022 NHL Draft, Mpofu was in charge of formally entering the Kings’ selections into the database on the floor of the Bell Center in Montreal. He called the assignment the highlight of his young NHL career so far.
“To be sitting there on the floor was definitely special for me, quite a unique and cool experience,” Mpofu said. “The day before the draft started, when I went there for the orientation on entering the pick, I definitely took some time to kind of look around and take it in. Obviously it being in Montreal, it was more special, such a unique and iconic venue in the sport of hockey.”
“Unique” is a word Mpofu often uses to describe his hockey journey. He was born in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Zimbabwean parents, his father a pediatric oncologist and his mother a midwife with a Ph.D.
The family moved to Saskatoon in 1997 when Mpofu was about 10 months old, and settled into the Canadian lifestyle, with hockey as a staple of their assimilation.
“Most of my friends growing up, they were sort of learning the game from their parents or their dads used to play maybe in the Western Hockey League, and they would build the backyard rinks and I would go play hockey at their houses,” Mpofu said. “I had a unique experience, in a sense, that I learned the game together with my parents.
“Very quickly we went from being a family that didn’t know anything about hockey to sort of becoming your classic Canadian hockey family. We’re at the rinks every day after school, at the rinks early in the morning and on the weekends, traveling around Saskatchewan and Alberta and Manitoba for AAA tournaments in the summer. Growing up, my parents loved the Calgary Flames and Jarome Iginla was their favorite player.”
Mpofu developed into a standout player in the Saskatchewan Male AAA Hockey League and was selected by Red Deer in the fourth round (No. 87) of the 2011 WHL Draft.
He didn’t have a point in four games with Red Deer in 2012-13. The following season he had 15 points (nine goals, six assists) in 65 games as a 17-year-old playing for then-general manager/coach Brent Sutter.
“It was amazing,” Mpofu said. “Obviously playing for Brent Sutter, who had a legendary NHL career and comes from one of the preeminent hockey families, was an awesome experience for me. I learned a lot, I matured a lot during that season in Red Deer. I learned a lot about self-evaluation and accountability from Brent Sutter.”
It was Sutter’s lessons about self-evaluation that convinced Mpofu that he should quit playing junior hockey after one full season and find another path to the NHL.
Sutter was surprised but not shocked when Mpofu said during his exit interview after the 2013-14 season that he was retiring as a player and heading to college to pursue a law degree.
“From a selfish point of view, I was disappointed that he wasn’t going to be part of our program moving forward,” said Sutter, who remains with Red Deer as owner, president and general manager after stepping down as coach in April. “But I was very, very excited for him personally, that this is a path that he was going to choose to go on, because he was such a smart kid, so respectful, so professional. I just truly believed that he was going to make it one way or another in the business side of the game and he would get to the highest level. And look at him now.”
Mpofu earned a political science degree from the University of Saskatchewan, then attended UCLA law school, lured by its sports and entertainment program.
He worked with UCLA Athletics as an NCAA Compliance extern and was president of the university’s Sports Law Federation from April 2020 to May 2021.
Mpofu got real-world experience as a legal intern for team sports at Wasserman in Los Angeles, and during internships with the Vegas Golden Knights from April 2020 to January 2021 and Wintersports, Ltd, in Edmonton from May to September in 2019.
When the manager of hockey operations and legal affairs job with the Kings became open, COO Kelly Cheeseman referred Mpofu to president Luc Robitaille and vice president and general manager Rob Blake. Emerson said they were impressed by Mpofu’s collegiate accomplishments and his playing experience.
“He played in the [WHL] for one of the Sutters, so he has that experience of what these players might have to go through when they become LA Kings,” Emerson said. “I think his future will be in hockey operations and management given the fact that he’s young he’s getting a ton of experience.”
Mpofu said he would like to rise in the management ranks and achieve another goal along the way, one he had as a player.
“Hopefully get my name on the Stanley Cup,” he said.
Photos: Red Deer Rebels; Vukie Mpofu
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