After accusations of antisemitism, a rising US hockey star nets a teshuva-fueled comeback
At 16, Trevor Connelly was dropped from his youth team for an Instagram post containing a swastika. The incident sparked a learning process – and an unlikely friendship with two clergy
OTTAWA, Canada — In early 2022, professional scouts had already identified 16-year-old Trevor Connelly as having the potential to one day become a superstar in the National Hockey League (NHL), the world’s premier professional ice hockey league.
Then, some of his mates from the Long Island Gulls youth team thought it would be pretty funny to create a swastika out of children’s building blocks.
His friends built a swastika, Connelly took a photo, added the caption “creations,” and posted it to Instagram.
After it was quickly brought to his attention that it may not have been a wise idea, he immediately removed the post and apologized, insisting that he did not mean to offend anyone. But the damage was done. Connelly was removed from the team.
The hockey world’s perception of his character was already very negative. Unusual for players of his ability, Connelly had bounced from team to team four times, including lasting only one week at a high school specializing in developing elite hockey players.
With the swastika incident, Connelly’s public image hit an all-time low. He was viewed as an extremely talented but very troubled and potentially “toxic” player.
Later in 2022, Connelly found his way to Nebraska and onto the roster of the Tri-City Storm of the developmental United States Hockey League (USHL), where he would try to hone his skills ahead of the 2024 NHL entry draft.
About halfway through his two-season stint there, in August of 2023, his story took an unexpected turn.
Redemption song
While at the family home in the Los Angeles suburb of Tustin, in Orange County, Connelly’s mom came across an article titled, “How to apologize when you say something antisemitic.”
Written by Cantor Olivia Brodsky and Rabbi Josh Stanton of East End Temple, a Reform congregation in New York City, the duo cited a few high-profile cases of American celebrities who had spouted antisemitic tropes in social media posts. They focused on how the perpetrators offered weak apologies, did not take responsibility for their words and actions, and missed golden opportunities to properly engage in teshuva, the Hebrew word for repentance, to generate positive change from a negative experience.
Reflecting on her son’s swastika fiasco, the authors’ message struck a chord with Connelly’s mother. She immediately contacted Brodsky and Stanton to see if they might be interested in having a conversation with Trevor to help him understand more meaningfully the impact of what he had done and how he might be able to make amends for it.
“I thought it was a helpful call for us to receive, to show that we could ‘walk the walk’ of what we had written,” said Stanton.
A Zoom call with Connelly was arranged for early September of 2023, and thus began an unlikely new relationship that none of the three involved could ever have anticipated would become as powerful and deep as it has over the last 18 months — and that they expect will continue for many years to come, as Trevor skates toward a high-profile career in the NHL.
“It’s so awesome. We’re able to talk about anything, anytime, just like good friends,” Connelly told The Times of Israel while helping Team USA win gold at the 2025 World Junior Hockey Championship in Ottawa early this year. The annual tournament showcases the world’s best players under the age of 20.
“Even when I’m struggling with stuff, like mentally, I’ll reach out and we’ll do a phone call and I’ll just get positive vibes. It means so much to me,” Connelly said.
Step one: Mop up the ignorance
Brodsky and Stanton started on that first Zoom call by asking questions of Connelly, first for him to explain the swastika Instagram post in his own words, and then to explore how much he knew about the Holocaust, Jews, and Judaism. It quickly became apparent that his actions came from a place of extreme ignorance, not malice.
“He didn’t know anything about World War II. He didn’t know which countries were involved. He wasn’t even familiar with the name Hitler. And he had never had any real interactions with any Jewish people, pretty much his entire life. He had never attended a friend’s bar or bat mitzvah, or anything like that,” said Brodsky. “For him, the swastika was just some symbol that some people seemed to think was funny.”
Stanton said they began a process of “teaching, learning, and discussing,” while trying to make it all “as accessible as possible, understanding that Trevor is a pretty busy human being, from 4 a.m. until 10 p.m., more than a few days a week.”
Initially, they had him read books and watch movies about the Holocaust, such as “Schindler’s List.” Then they branched into antisemitism more broadly, as well as Jewish culture and history.
Connelly said reading Elie Wiesel’s iconic book “Night” had a big impact on him, and that he was shaken to his core when visiting the Museum of Tolerance (Beit HaShoah) in Los Angeles with his mother.
“We walked out of there pretty shocked,” said Connelly. The first-round draft pick of the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2024 NHL entry draft is a freshman at Providence College this year. “We learned a lot, and it was really eye-opening to both of us, for sure.”
Then, just a few weeks after that visit, came the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, which saw some 1,200 people in southern Israel brutally murdered by invading Hamas-led terrorists and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Said Brodsky: “We were very touched that just days after October 7, Trevor sent us a text message to check in and see how we and our community were doing.”
Stanton explained how October 7 led to a shift away from discussions of history to “more immediate issues about antisemitism today, here and around the world, and the way that Jews are misportrayed in the media, and misunderstood in society.”
With Trevor committed to meeting regularly with the duo and to doing homework in between sessions, Stanton said what impressed him the most is that Trevor “cared deeply and he put in the time and energy to learning and growing.” He described Trevor as “a sincere and fundamentally kind person.”
Stanton, who is also associate vice president for interfaith and intergroup initiatives of the Jewish Federations of North America, noted how he has done a lot of outreach work in many different ways in recent years, such as speaking to school and youth groups about Judaism and antisemitism or being brought in “after moments of conflict between communities.”
Mentoring Connelly, he said, is the first time he has worked behind the scenes with an individual who “has been lambasted in the public square.”
“I think it’s of critical importance right now,” Stanton said. “When there’s a rise in antisemitism, we can’t just write everybody off. But we can ask them to learn and hopefully to change and grow in the way that Trevor has. So, I think Trevor’s story is emblematic of what can be possible.”
The Times of Israel Community.