Color of Hockey: All-minority team offers chance for bonding

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past eight years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the game. Today, he profiles an all-minority team that's competing in the Beantown Summer Classic tournament.

Reggie Millette saw something that he'd never seen before when he walked into the locker room for the Beantown Summer Classic on Sunday: an all-minority hockey team.
"I think it's good because not that many minority people play," said Millette, a forward for Dubuque of the United States Hockey League. "If we can get out there and show other people that hockey is a sport that we play, we can help bring the numbers up."
Millette is a member of the NextGen AAA Foundation team that's competing in the invitation-only summer classic that began Saturday and ends Tuesday in Exeter, New Hampshire.
The Under-20 team consists of 19 elite Black players and one Hispanic player who were recruited by Rod Braceful, the assistant director of player personnel for USA Hockey's National Team Development Program. Former NHL players
Mike Grier
and
Bryce Salvador
are coaching the team, which includes four college-bound players and a third-round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft.

The NextGen team won its opener 4-1 on Sunday and is seeking to win the prestigious tournament, which is attended by NHL scouts. But its mission is also to highlight hockey's growing diversity and provide an opportunity for players of color to meet and bond with other minority players.
"Hockey is a sport that often with these kids, it was the same when I was growing up, you're the only Black kid or minority kid on your team and you have to go through and experience things that other players don't understand," said Grier, an assistant with the New Jersey Devils who was the only Black coach to work behind the bench in the NHL this season. "I just think it's nice for these kids to know that they're not alone and there are other kids going through the same things, that they have shared experiences."
Grier said one of his most cherished hockey experiences was being one of five Black players on Edmonton's roster in 2001, along with forwards
Anson Carter
and
Georges Laraque
, defenseman
Sean Brown
and goalie
Joaquin Gage
.
"It was a feeling of comfort having other guys like that in the room with me," said Grier, who played 1,060 NHL games with the Oilers, Washington Capitals, Buffalo Sabres and San Jose Sharks. "It's kind of an unspoken bond with those players, those guys. Whenever we see each other, we can always fall back in the routines and enjoy being around each other."
Grier said he hopes that his tournament players will forge the same bonds.
"Hopefully, they'll become good friends and keep in touch," he said. "You'll always have your support group, your family, to kind of lean when things don't go right. But sometimes it's just nice to have another player who actually is pretty much in your shoes and knows what you're going through to talk about these things."
NextGen's tournament roster includes
Jordan Harris
, a Northeastern University defenseman who was selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the third round (No. 71) of the 2018 NHL Draft; Northeastern incoming freshman defenseman James Davenport, who played last season for Victoria of the British Columbia Hockey League; forward Ross Mitton, who played for Omaha of the USHL this season and will join Colgate in the fall; Christian Jimenez, a defenseman for Sioux City of the USHL and a 2021-22 Harvard commit; and Millette, who's committed to American International College for 2021-22.

"It's one thing to say, 'Hey, we want to have an initiative where we get a bunch of diverse players together just because.' But there's more to it," said Salvador, who played 786 NHL games for the St. Louis Blues and New Jersey Devils and was the League's third Black captain. "These players are great players, guys who've committed to D-I colleges. You have kids who are up and coming and you're showing them that, 'You can compete and you belong and you can play at the highest level.' That's a strong message."
The message is strong enough that Northeastern coach Jim Madigan encouraged Harris and Davenport to join the all-minority team for the tournament.
"It's a great opportunity for our young men -- who are elite, high-level quality men and players -- to be role models and to be able in this time that we're in now to be able to promote and support Black and minority players in hockey," Madigan said. "We can be a change agent in our sport, and that's what I want this opportunity to be."
Harris said he was thrilled to be asked to join the team.
"It's important to make connections with kids that maybe have similar upbringing or similar experiences because there aren't really that many Black players in hockey," said Harris, who scored 21 points (three goals, 18 assists) for Northeastern this season. "You're seeing more and more these days. I feel it's important to kind of have that (sense of) community and try to show that there are kids who are successful in hockey."

The team was formed by NextGen AAA Foundation, a nonprofit organization the provides mentoring, education and hockey programs to underprivileged youth and underserved communities. It was founded in 2017 by Dee Dee Ricks, a philanthropist and hockey mom who has provided more than $1 million to help Black and brown student-athletes at some of the nation's leading preparatory schools, colleges and travel hockey programs throughout North America.
The NHL and Pure Hockey, the largest hockey retailer in the U.S., are sponsors of the NextGen tournament team.
"NextGen is carving out a pipeline of diverse, elite-level hockey talent," said Kim Davis, NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Social Impact, Growth Initiatives and Legislative Affairs. "We believe that in the near future, more teams across the continent will feature more players of color, and this NextGen team is a strong signal that we are moving closer to that day."