For it was Black hockey players in the later half of the nineteenth century whose style of play and innovations helped shape the sport, effectively changing the game of hockey forever, according to “Black Ice”, a book about Black presence in the sport.
According to George and Darril Fosty, authors of the groundbreaking book “Black Ice”, all Black teams started forming around 1895 and by 1900 the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes was fully formed and based in Halifax.
Unfortunately, such was their fate, that their contributions were conveniently ignored, or simply stolen, as White teams and hockey officials, influenced by the Black league, copied elements of the Black style or sought to take self-credit for Black hockey innovations,” according to George and Fosty.
Africville was the center of the Black population where the action was but a few decades on, the city of Halifax decided they needed large portions of land to run a railway right through community kicking Black people out of their homes ending the Colored Hockey League in 1930.
“White people it seems had a perception that hockey was a White man’s sport, and Black people should stick to sports like basketball or baseball,” stated Bob Dawson, the first Black player in 1967 in the Atlantic Intercollegiate Hockey League.
