Black Hockey Players & Good Books
Once my Sociology of Sport professor started lecturing on race in sport, I suddenly remembered this post from Vancouver Canucks Op Ed on black hockey players. I quickly ordered the book by Cecil Harris entitled Breaking the Ice: The Black Experience in Professional Hockey. The book talks about what it was or is like to play in the NHL as a black player (or in the leagues leading up to the NHL). The stories of black hockey players include Herb Carnegie, Willie O’Ree, Bill Riley, Ray Neufeld, Donald Brashear, Sandy McCarthy, Kevin Weekes, Tony McKegney, Mike Marson, Grant Fuhr, Mike Grier, Anson Carter, and Jarome Iginla. Many black players in the NHL looked up to black athletes in other sports. For example, Georges Laraque refused to quit playing hockey [after hearing a ton of racial slurs as a young kid] because Jackie Robinson didn’t quit baseball.
“I felt that if he did it, I should be able to do it too…I think it became a mission for Jackie Robinson to make it in baseball, to shut all those people up, and it became my mission to make it in hockey - all the way to the NHL,” Laraque said. (p106)
Tony McKegney didn’t have any black hockey players to look up to who were playing when he was young so he looked at black athletes in other sports.
“I used to draw strength from what black athletes were doing in other sports,” he said. “In the sixties and seventies blacks were making their marks in every sport but hockey. I looked to people like Muhammad Ali. I was a huge fan of his. And I was also a big fan of the NBA…” (p115)
It’s the current black hockey players who grew up with other black NHL players as role models. Case in point, Jarome Iginla who admired McKegney.
“Tony McKegney showed me it was possible for someone like me to play in the NHL,” Iginla said. “He set the example. He was a role model.” (p115)
I’ve read just over half of the book so far and I feel like I’ve learned a lot! Don’t just believe me, read Jeff and Alanah’s review of the book.However, the Acid Queen had a differing view:
I would take the book with a large grain of salt. I have absolutely no doubt about some of the hate and nastiness that the guys interviewed for the book faced, but…..Cecil Harris is known here in the Triangle as somebody who hates hockey and who has told several fans that he feels it’s a racist sport simply because there are so few black players. When he worked for the News and Observer, he viewed his assignment as Hurricanes beat reporter as punishment duty of the worst sort, and took every opportunity to take shots at the Hurricanes and their fans. Back in the days of the old Hurricanes Penalty Box message board, he used to come on and regularly call people that took issue with his articles “idiots” “fools” and “dumbasses”. He’s a rude, snide, arrogant and just plain nasty little man, and really the book is much like all his articles for the News and Observer were: half-assed, exaggerated, and self-important.
The book really falls short of what it could have been, thanks to the battleship-sized chip that Cecil Harris carries on his shoulder all the time. Just my 1/50 of a dollar.
Other Good Books
Speaking of reading good sport books, specifically hockey, I wanted to list some of my favorite sport books here and they aren’t in any particular order. I love reading sport books so if you know of a good book, please email me or leave a comment and let me know!
by John Manasso [looks at the tragic accident involving two Atlanta Thrashers’ players, Dan Snyder & Dany Heatley]Related Posts
One Response to “Black Hockey Players & Good Books”
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January 24th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
There’s a lot of good info on the history of Black Hockey players in the February (Black History Month) archives at http://www.atrainhockey.com. Regardless of his personal opinions and reputation in Carolina, Harri’s book is an important work if only because there is so little written on the subject. In my opinion, a much better work is Black Ice: The Lost History of the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925 by George and Darril Fosty. More on the book can be found at http://www.blackicebook.com.