Willie O'Ree Award winner to be announced before Game 3 of Western Final
Honor given to individual who has positively impacted his or her community, culture or society through hockey
The winner of the Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award presented by MassMutual will be revealed Saturday before Game 3 of the Western Conference Final between the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers. The game begins at 8 p.m. ET.
The Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award presented by MassMutual is given to an individual who through hockey has positively impacted his or her community culture or society. It honors O'Ree, who became the first Black player to play in the NHL when he debuted for the Boston Bruins at the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 18, 1958.
The winner was determined by fan vote, which took place April 4-17, and weighted votes from O'Ree and MassMutual.
Here is a look at the three finalists:
Noel Acton
For Noel Acton, hockey becoming part of his foundation, the Tender Bridge, was completely by accident.
"I ended up taking some kids to hockey," Acton said. "A friend of mine had four kids, I went with him to help do equipment, and there were eight kids that wanted to watch, and those kids said, 'Can we play?' So I said, 'Sure, I'll pick you up,' and every week after that, ever since for the last 20 years, we've been playing hockey."
The Tender Bridge is an organization that since 2002 has guided at-risk youth in Baltimore on the path to become productive citizens. The Baltimore Banners was started in 2011 and is made up of players ages 12-20. They played the third annual Bridge the Gap game in February against the Baltimore Sentinels, a team of first responders (police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and several members of the military). On May 14, the Banners had their first all-star game with players from the Tucker Road Ducks, a program designed for girls and boys ages 4-18, against players from the Maryland Hero Hockey League, the only public safety hockey league in the Maryland/Washington, D.C. region.
Acton's work has meant a lot to many including Antoine Greene Sr., one of Tender Bridge's lead mentors who's worked with Acton and his foundation for the past 14 years.
"My two nephews who had just lost my sister and her husband a year apart, they were in the program. I have two sons who are their age, so they would come up to my house, tell me about the program and said, 'Come on, bring them down," Greene said. "I thought, 'Hockey? Really? We're a baseball family.' Soon I said, 'OK,' took them down and man, my kids and me fell in love with hockey.
"Honestly, it's unbelievable to see how this man goes through the roughest parts of Baltimore City. When Noel comes through, every kid knows him and is saying, 'Are we going to play hockey?' It's sailing, it's mountain biking, it's all of the stuff we do."
The love of hockey is heading outside of Baltimore as well. Acton said The Tender Bridge began a street hockey program last summer that garnered a lot of participation.
"We had over 50 kids show up that all lived within 500 feet of that basketball court and there's at least 100 basketball courts in Baltimore alone," Acton said. "What we do and how we work with the kids is very intense, long term. We start when they're 6 and 8 years old and they go until they're 21, 22, so it's a long-term process and you can't have a zillion kids. Duplicating the process with other non-profits is what one of our major goals is, so that's why the national attention is so rewarding for me."
Ryan Francis
Ryan Francis found out quickly there was a demand for hockey among Indigenous girls.
"Before we actually formally launched the program, I went around to different locations and communities and essentially did smaller ice times," he said.
Francis founded the Indigenous Girls Hockey Program Nova Scotia two years ago. He is a Mi'kmaw man and member of Acadia First Nation in Nova Scotia.
"So we had about, I would say, 8-15 girls come out in each location, which we thought was a great success and sort of demonstrated that there was a need and opportunity to want something more formal," Francis said.
The program began through partnerships with institutions such as Hockey Nova Scotia and Hockey Canada. Numbers have gone from a few to nearly 200 unique participants representing three different Mi'kmaq communities (First Nations people), and interest continues to grow.
Matt Tapper, CEO of Aboriginal Sport Circle, has known and worked with Francis for five years.
"Ryan's done a great job in connecting and bringing the right partners to make sure the game is delivered in a holistic way," Tapper said. "The first year it was a little hectic in trying to get [the program] up and running. The second year was smoother and now with the third year, even with (COVID-19), you still see the excitement, the joy and interest."
Ultimately, Francis would like to expand the program beyond Nova Scotia. Said Tapper, who is also Indigenous, "For us, provincial borders aren't something we recognize."
Wherever the program goes from here, Francis is thrilled to see the girls who have been able to join the hockey community thus far.
"Building that community and sense of belonging in hockey and equipping the participants and our incredible volunteers who dedicate so much to this program and seeing not just their excitement around the program but then how they interact with hockey beyond that is really special," Francis said. "So whenever I'm in a rink and I see a Mi'kmaw flag on the back of a player's helmet, or there are girls who have participated in our program now trying out for Team Atlantic for the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships, those stories are really, really cool. But it continues to sort of centralize back to Indigenous Girls Hockey Program and the opportunities it's provided."
Meredith Lang
Meredith Lang looked no further than her daughters, Mia and Aubrey, for inspiration to start two girl's hockey programs
Lang is a co-founder of Hockey Ninas, which helps gather information and shares resources to make it easy for anyone who wants to try hockey, and MN Unbounded, an organization of under-10, under-12 and under-14 teams comprised of all girls of color.
"I didn't think I was going to have hockey players, that's for sure," Lang said. "My daughter came to me at 6 years old saying she wanted to play hockey. I always say I was extremely blessed because I did play it in high school, even though I was 15 years removed, but I at least knew where the rink was. I knew how to put on the equipment. I knew all those foundational things that didn't make walking into an ice arena intimidating."
Minnesota Hockey executive director Greg Andresen, whose daughters played in the same hockey association as Lang's, got to know her a few years ago. When Minnesota hockey was looking to focus more on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Andresen invited Lang to a focus group.
"Immediately she just made an impact, just with what she shared and her vision, just how impactful her own experience was, so that really kind of started the relationship with Minnesota hockey and she just took it from there and just hasn't stopped," Andresen said. "She's just kept working at this."
The groups got national exposure when eight MN Unbounded players and two coaches skated on one of the auxiliary rinks at Target Field for the 2022 Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues on Jan. 1. It was one more experience that has been rewarding for Lang and the girls she's helped introduce to hockey.
"I said, our hands and our feet are going to be freezing, but our hearts are going to be warm," Lang said. "It was just the most unreal experience to be able to see all those thousands of people who were out there. These once-in-a-lifetime experiences, the more positive experiences all our kids have, the more they're going to want to give back to the game."
