Who woulda thought?

So for anyone that flicks on the TV or picks up the paper, there is so much going on-- especially this week. I mean to flying boys, to the war, to the flu its hard to keep up sometime. I want to address something that isn't always changing, something that flies under the radar and many people don't even recognize it. It is an arena which shows that progress is not being made. There are certain events that show us the progress has been very slow, however in this particular arena it is stagnant and progress cannot be made overall if everyone is not on board.
What am I talking about?
Simply put, I'm talking about hockey. Yea, Hockey.
This is probably not the primetime sport that is set on everyone's DVR, but if you look at the history of hockey in racial development, it shows one avenue that PoC are still way behind. Currently there are 29 minority players in the NHL and the numbers before this decade range from 1-5, at best. (http://www.aaregistry.com/) I know that there is some little African American, Latino,Asian boy out there that would love to play hockey, but there are not any rolemodels for him to look up to. The NHL is very shy about incorporating any people of color in its pool. The African American Registry recounts the historical trials of A.A in hockey stating,

Other sports such as basketball, football and baseball offered better infrastructure and more apparent opportunities. Without race as a factor, hockey's initial time of overall appeal began in the 1890s when what was an unsophisticated game rapidly got organized and got promotional support. At the same time, however, the number of blacks in Canada was plunging due to the return of many former slaves to the United States. A population that numbered over 60,000 (nearly two percent of the national total) prior to the American Civil War had tumbled to just over 16,000 by 1911, amounting to one-fifth of one percent of the country's total.

Despite this, blacks that remained played the game, an early indicator that they felt themselves to be a part of this emerging identity of their country and sport. In 1899, Hipple "Hippo" Galloway, of Alder Street in Dunuville, Ontario, played for the Woodstock team in the Central Ontario Hockey Association. Galloway was not alone. Charley Lightfoot of the Stratford team was a second Black player in the league and one of the better players in the Central Ontario Hockey Association. Still this was during the darkest era of Jim Crow legislation, the imposed segregation in the America. Despite Canada's more liberal heritage, the appalling repeat of American model led to Galloway’s banishment that summer from an Ontario baseball league because an American import objected to his presence.

Galloway left Canada to barnstorm with a black baseball team. At the same time a Colored Hockey League was formed in Atlantic Canada, similar to the Negro Baseball Leagues in the United States. It is unclear whether players were forced to develop a separate organization because of racial exclusion or if they felt, the need for their own association to retain a community identity. The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes formed in 1900 included teams from Afrieville (the Seasides), Dartmouth (the Jubilees), Halifax (the Eurekas), Truro (the Victorias) and Amherst (the Royals). It was a Nova Scotia-based league and Prince Edward Island where black talent flourished. It had an all-black team featuring five members of the Mills family and two others that played all-white teams on the island and black teams in Nova Scotia. Exhibitions by black hockey teams in Nova Scotia ran well into the 1920s and their playing innovations included a rule allowing the goalie to fall to the ice to block a shot before such a rule entered the NHL rulebook.

So what happened to these leagues? what happened to the many players that were interested? Did they just decide to do other sports. I think it is important that in progress, we fight to have all doors open and to make sure that none are slyly closed. It is just odd to me that hockey still remains an all white sport.

(For the record, the statistics about the 29 minorities playing in the NHL was last recorded in 2003)