Pretty good! Or at least she better be.
Because she’s forever at hockey games.
FOREVER.
SO I’M JUST ASSUMING THAT ALL OF HER HOMEWORK IS DONE.
She feels about hockey the way I feel about USC Football.
Yesterday she got home in the middle of the night
‘cause the BU v Harvard game (BEANPOT game) went into double OT.
(BU won 4-3. Go Terriers! Good dogs!)
And of course I get pics.
‘
‘Cause that’s my girl. (I’m kiddin’…EVERYONE KNOWS she’s daddy’s girl)
And there’s this one time THIS happened:
Well would you look at that. A unicorn!
Or actually, yannow. A black bear?
Well. Technically, that there is Malcolm Hayes, of the University of Maine Black Bears.
I’m sure there’s a completely inappropriate joke in there, but I’m just gonna let it be.
This time.
I know. Black people don’t like to be cold. We are a tropical people.
Or at least I am. I start falling apart around 60 degrees.
BUT. Turns out black folks been playin’ hockey as long as hockey has been around.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, there was a black hockey league. The league, which started as an informal game among African settlers in Nova Scotia, grew into a makeshift colored league.
It wasn’t an officially sanctioned league of any kind but group of devoted black hockey enthusiasts providing entertaining games to around 1,500 mostly white folk.
One of the earliest blacks in the sport of hockey was Hipple “Hippo” Galloway. Better known as a barnstorming baseball player, Galloway was a star player on his hometown on the Central Ontario Hockey Association, as well as the local baseball team.
Galloway left his hometown in 1899 after an American import on the baseball team objected to his inclusion on the team.
In the late 1940’s, the was Herb Carnegie, star of the Quebec Senior Hockey League. Those who saw Carnegie play describe him as one of the fastest and most skilled players ever.
Carnegie should have been the first in the NHL had it not been for the “alleged prejudice” of the day.
Unlike football, baseball or basketball, the NHL never had an official policy banning blacks from playing.
But there were suspicions of an unofficial policy, especially when Toronto Maple Leaf owner Conn Smythe is said to have said, “I’ll give any man $10,000 who can make Herb Carnegie white.”
All of the side eye. ALL OF IT!
TO BE FAIR, I guess, Carnegie would get a shot at the NHL later in his career. The New York Rangers gave him a training camp tryout, and offered him a contract but they wanted him to apprentice a year in the minor leagues. Carnegie said FUUUCKTHAT and returned home to his young family in Quebec where he earned more money than he would have in the NHL. So there.
It was not until January 18, 1958 when Willie O’Ree took to the ice for the Boston Bruins (I just can’t get away from Boston, y’all) in a game against the Montreal Canadians that a black man would debut in the NHL. By doing so O’Ree ensured himself a place in hockey history as the “Jackie Robinson of hockey.” Or maybe “Willie O’Ree, First Black Hockey Player” I dunno.
ANYWAYS. To date there’s been 52 black folks who have played in the NHL.
Including Gerald Coleman- First graduate of NHL’s diversity program.
Look at us, y’all.
We outchea. Freezing our asses off.
Yeah I said it 