Four black players among top drafts
Darnell Nurse, 15, practices in Stoney Creek, Ontario. Nurse is one of four black hockey players among this year's top 12 OHL draft picks.AARON HARRIS/TORONTO STAR
By Cynthia Vukets
For the first time ever four black players were taken in the first 12 picks of the OHL draft last week, but for the league, this is the new normal.
“To me that’s encouraging,” says Toronto-born former NHL winger Anson Carter. “It’s a predominantly white sport.”
Hamilton native and Don Mills Flyers defender Darnell Nurse was the third OHL draft pick, going to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. Fifth overall was Jordan Subban — younger brother of Montreal Canadiens’ P.K. Subban — picked by the Belleville Bulls. Right behind him was Ottawa’s Nicholas Baptiste, drafted to the Sudbury Wolves. And 12th pick overall was Stephen Harper, drafted by the Erie Otters.
Those players have all grown up playing on multicultural teams.
“We’re really diverse,” says Nurse of the Flyers roster. “We had black, brown, Jewish.”
“For kids my age, I think (hockey) is totally open.”
Nurse, 15, started skating when he was two and playing hockey when he was four. His dad, Richard, played pro football with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, but said it was too dangerous for his son.
“He got me in hockey right away, from a young age,” says the younger Nurse. “Summer after summer I asked (to play football) but he wouldn’t budge.”
The big wave in this year’s draft is part of a larger trend, as this year’s picks aren’t the first to make an impact in the OHL or the big leagues. The Memorial Cup tournament beginning Thursday will feature several minority players, including Missisauga Majors’ Devante Smith-Pelly who has already been drafted to the Anaheim Ducks.
In the NHL, Jarome Iginla has long been a leading scorer. And the Atlanta Thrashers dressed four black players throughout this season, more than any other club.
Is the face of hockey changing? And if so, does it matter?
“It’s definitely worth recognition,” says Joel Ward, the Toronto-born Nashville Predators winger who once played for the Don Mills Flyers.
“I think it’s good news,” adds Ward, who is of Barbadian descent. “It just goes to show that hockey has come a long way.”
The OHL isn’t sure this year’s draft is anything special.
“We don’t trumpet it, because it is what it is,” says Ted Baker, OHL vice president. “We’re not looking at our league or our players as anything but players.”
Baker says he can’t remember anything similar in his 23 years with the league, but can’t say this year’s draft is a first because the OHL doesn’t track the ethnicity of its players.
Carter says black players may not be counted, but they are noticed.
“It’s still a game that’s dominated by players that are not minority players and people will be looking at you,” says the retired right winger of Barbadian descent who played for the Canucks, Oilers and most recently the Carolina Hurricanes. “You’re always under that microscope.”
Willie O’Ree was the first black player in the NHL when he dressed for the Boston Bruins in 1958.
There are currently about 30 black players in the league, up from just 12 five years ago.
Ward says he’s still the only minority person in the locker-room. Not so for young players in the Hillcrest Minor Hockey Association, where one-third of participants are of Asian descent.
Or in the ProAction hockey league based in Flemingdon Park, where the 128 players on eight teams come from 15 to 20 different cultural backgrounds, according to league founder Dave Croutch.
And in Mississauga, 120 new Canadians laced up skates for the very first time this year, thanks to the Got Hockey program the league created to target first-time hockey players.
Minor hockey associations credit an increasing number of diverse role models and targeted programs to bring in new Canadians with boosting the proportion of minority players in hockey.
“I think the Nazem’s have really helped it a lot because the kids relate to it,” says Mississauga Hockey League president Bob Fletcher, referring to Leafs’ Centre Nazem Kadri, who is of Lebanese descent.
But there are still obstacles for minority players to reach the game’s highest level.
“It’s way too cost-prohibitive … by this setup, none of us would have been able to be in the league,” says retired goaltender Kevin Weekes, who is now the self-described “first black hockey broadcaster” in his post- NHL career with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada.
While Weekes says his parents, who emigrated from Barbados, always encouraged him to play hockey, some newcomer parents are more comfortable putting their children in sports that are culturally familiar, such as soccer, baseball or cricket.
“As a parent, you’ve played a certain game and you get your kids into that game,” says OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan.
And Carter says negative peer pressure can discourage teens from sticking with hockey.
“It wasn’t until I got to high school that it became an issue,” he recalls. “Hockey wasn’t black enough all of a sudden.”
Nurse shrugs off the thought of any barriers to his success.
“The NHL is my goal now,” he says simply.
Originally published on thestar.com
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