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NHL’s Diversity Month ending, but quest doesn’t

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Former standout winger Tony McKegney, the first black player to score 40 goals in an NHL season, had long been helping to introduce New York kids to hockey by participating in the Hockey in Harlem program and other efforts that encouraged youngsters to try a sport they might not otherwise have considered.

But it wasn’t until a few months ago that dreams and diversity came together in a way that touched him and his audience.

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‘I was in Chicago and I spoke to about 500 kids and it was the day that Barack Obama got elected,’ McKegney said. ‘It added to my whole speech because these kids might not play hockey later but I told them anything’s possible in life.

‘If you would have told me five years ago

that there would be a black president or a female vice president I would have thought you were nuts. Today we have a person of color as president of our nation. It really makes a point about perseverance.’

McKegney has been visiting NHL cities the past few weeks as part of the league’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative, which offers support and programs to non-profit youth hockey organizations that offer kids of all backgrounds a chance to play the game. The official celebration of Diversity Month ends in a few days, but the NHL’s efforts to increase diversity among its players and fans lives on.

McKegney is in Atlanta this week to help promote kids’ hockey programs there. Willie O’Ree, who in 1958 became the first black player in the NHL, has also been criss-crossing the continent to promote hockey as a sport for all.

While in Los Angeles earlier this month McKegney had lunch with Kings rookie Wayne Simmonds, one of about a dozen black players currently on NHL rosters.

‘A very nice kid,’ said McKegney, who scored 320 goals for seven teams in a 13-season NHL career that ended after the 1990-91 season.

Simmonds told the Los Angeles Times earlier this season that he was the target of racial slurs when he played junior hockey, just as McKegney was a generation earlier.

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‘It’s sad,’ McKegney said by phone. ‘Hockey is a very emotional sport. People grab hold of everything.

‘That said, you have to remember that Europeans had to put up with a lot of abuse when they came over here -- Swedes, Russians, Czechoslovakians. . . . My whole thing was to drive myself to be a great player and let the other part be pushed into the background.’

But hockey is expensive to play, with costs mounting quickly for equipment, ice rental and, if players stay with the game, travel to tournaments. Most rinks are in the suburbs and not accessible to inner-city kids.

McKegney, 51 and semi-retired, said the best programs he has seen for acquainting kids with the game are affiliated with schools. Those programs make hockey fun while providing kids exercise and opening their minds to the notion that anyone can play hockey, whether on ice, inline skates or on foot outdoors.

Many NHL teams have given tickets to inner-city kids, which McKegney believes is another step toward kindling their interest.

‘I’ve never heard of somebody going to a hockey game and not liking it,’ he said. ‘I think it’s just a matter of getting people exposed to it.

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‘And from talking to people I have heard them say they didn’t grow up going to hockey games because they didn’t feel comfortable doing that. It could have been an affordability issue as well. Those people like hockey and now their kids are playing.’

One of those kids could follow the footsteps of Calgary right wing Jarome Iginla, the son of a Nigerian father and American mother and the first black player to lead the NHL in goals and points.

‘More kids are getting more and more involved,’ McKegney said. ‘I always say to myself, ‘Is there a Michael Jordan out there?’ A kid who, if he was exposed to hockey at 5 or 6, would be like Michael Jordan?’

-- Helene Elliott

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