Ice Breakers

There's always a big push for diversity in hockey during their "Hockey Is For Everyone" month over the course of February. While the sentiment is nice, the other eleven months of the calendar are also months where hockey is for everyone, and I don't understand why the NHL goes to great lengths to try and push this narrative in the shortest months of the year. There are all sorts of people whose backgrounds have led to a much more diverse game now than any point in history, and that's simply a product of hockey becoming more popular across the globe. The key in all of this, though, is that hockey has always been for everyone, and at no point should we simply appoint a month to celebrate the diversity in hockey. They live and follow hockey like you and I for the other eleven months, so let's start making "Hockey Is For Everyone" a daily thing as opposed to one month.

My wishes for this correction aside, I received a press release yesterday from the National Film Board about a new film that is streaming for free on its site. It reads,

"A new short documentary by Sri Lankan-Canadian filmmaker Sandi Rankaduwa, Ice Breakers explores the buried history of how Black athletes helped pioneer modern hockey, as seen through the present-day journey of Nova Scotian Josh Crooks, a young, gifted African-Canadian hockey player in an overwhelmingly white sport.

"Inclusivity, fairness, and fun are integral values to good sport and can help effect positive change within the community of the game. However, as we've seen recently in the news, hockey continues to have a race problem that hurts both players and lovers of the sport. Ice Breakers investigates racial inclusivity in the game by reflecting on the transgenerational experiences of Black hockey players, as Josh discovers that his passion for the sport is tied to the remarkable history of the Coloured Hockey League. Through this new knowledge and understanding of his heritage, we see him take on a leadership role in helping other young African-Canadian hockey players fall in love with the game."

I'm sure you that can guess that these two paragraphs piqued my interest as I'm always on the hunt for a good hockey story, but this one has a great human element to it because I, as a white guy, can't possibly understand what Josh Crooks has seen and heard as an African-Canadian hockey player. Before introducing the key players who brought this short 15-minute film to life, here is the film itself. I present to you Ice Breakers.

Ice Breakers by Sandamini Rankaduwa

Honestly, that was a pretty compelling examination, albeit brief, of the history of hockey and people of colour in the province of Nova Scotia with a great look at Josh Crooks' life thus far. I too was shocked that the Nova Scotia Hockey Hall of Fame had just one picture and zero references to an entire league of African-Canadian players in the early 20th century, but this is why stories like this one need to be told.

Director Sandi Rankaduwa, according to her biographical write-up on the NFB site, "is a Sri Lankan-Canadian writer, filmmaker, and comedian who splits her time between Brooklyn and Halifax. Ice Breakers is her third film. Her cultural criticism has appeared in The Believer, Rolling Stone, and BuzzFeed Reader, and she was named one of three BuzzFeed Emerging Writer Fellows for 2018. As a comedian, Sandi has performed stand-up both in the US and Canada, opening for headliners such as Aparna Nancherla, Todd Barry, and Jen Kirkman. Her featured performances include the Chicago Women's Funny Fest, Halifax Comedy Fest, Women In Comedy Festival (Boston), Halifax Pop Explosion, and the SheDot Festival (Toronto)."

What her bio doesn't say is that Sandi Rankaduwa's a Dalhousie University graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience with a minor in International Development Studies! She also graduated from the University of King's College with a degree in Journalism so she's basically qualified to do almost anything, but I'm pretty glad she brought her skills to film-making. Her comedic resumé saw her hone her craft at the iO Theatre in Chicago after doing web pieces for 22 Minutes on CBC. Needless to say, she may have already done a lot on that list of anything!

I believe that the film that Sandi Rankaduwa has made in Ice Breakers should prompt a change in how Nova Scotia embraces this wing of hockey history in that province, and hopefully it will get those changes started. For the African-Canadian community in Nova Scotia and across this country, I'll be the first to admit that there a ton of historical records and information that need to be brought to the surface to provide a more complete and accurate history of hockey in this country, and that by not telling it or talking about it does a great disservice to the hockey story written over time in this country.

Congratulations to Sandi Rankaduwa on her incredible film, and I hope you continue to push the boundaries in your work. To Josh Crooks, I hope you continue to inspire the next generation and future generations of players, and I'm happy to learned a little about you. My only hope is that there are more examinations of hockey history like this so that more stories are told and can be included in the history of this game.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!