Color of Hockey: Black Rosie Media will be busy at Olympics

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Erica L. Ayala and Jordan Dabney, who are covering the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 for Black Rosie Media, a multimedia platform that empowers Black women and women of color in sports media.

Erica L. Ayala dreamed of competing in the Olympics as a child growing up in New York.

“I really got into speed skating when I was younger, and I always loved skating and going fast,” Alaya said. “I would like, visualize looking up in the crowd, looking for my family, all of that stuff.”

Ayala has made it to the Olympics, but not as an athlete. The 40-year-old pioneering broadcaster/journalist is among the 3,000 members of the media credentialed to cover the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

She and Jordan Dabney are providing dispatches for Black Rosie Media, a multimedia platform Ayala established in May 2022 to empower Black women and women of color in sports media. Ayala is also covering for Olympics.com, the digital hub of the International Olympic Committee.

Ayala and Dabney are focusing on women’s and men’s hockey in Milano Cortina as well as chronicling the athletes of color participating in other sports at the Winter Games for the more than 22,000 followers of Black Rosie’s podcasts, online newsletter and social media posts.

“The idea is to give voice to Black women and melanated people, regardless of how they identify,” said Ayala, who is Black/Latina. “Throughout the year, we cover primarily hockey and basketball from the women's sports perspective. When it comes to an Olympics, we first start with women's sports and provide women's sports fans with the field of athletes they may be familiar with because of their college ties or their pro ties.

"We got to know those athletes leading up to the Olympics, talking about them throughout the year. When we’re there (Milano Cortina), it's an opportunity to do some direct storytelling with those athletes.”

The two-person team will have plenty to cover in hockey alone.

University of Wisconsin defenseman Laila Edwards made history when she became the first Black to play for the U.S. in a 5-1 win against Czechia on Thursday.

Sarah Nurse is playing in her third Winter Games, four years after she had 18 points (five goals, 13 assists) in seven games to lead Canada to the gold medal at the 2022 PyeongChang Olympics and break a scoring record set by Hayley Wickenheiser (17 points) at the 2006 Torino Olympics.

And Sophie Jaques, a defenseman for Minnesota of the Professional Women's Hockey League, made her Olympic debut for Canada. Jaques became the first Black player to win the Patty Kazmaier award in 2023 as the top player in NCAA Division I women’s hockey after she had 48 points (24 goals, 24 assists) in 41 games for Ohio State and led NCAA defensemen in goals and points.

“(There's) Laila Edwards making history as the first (U.S.) Black woman at this Olympics and Sarah Nurse making history at the last Olympics to be the first Black woman to win Olympic gold with Hockey Canada,” Ayala said. “Knowing what we know about the women’s tournament and knowing what we know from the small sample size from the U.S.-Canada Rivalry Series, this is setting up Laila Edwards to be a really, really big storyline. And all this is happening in Black History Month, so I think that’s a huge deal there.”

Ayala has made history of her own. She joined Kelly Schultz to form the first all-woman digital broadcast team for the New Jersey Devils when they called a 5-3 Devils win against the Colorado Avalanche on Gender Equality Night at Prudential Center on March 8, 2022.

A former NCAA Division I softball player at Elon University in North Carolina, Ayala has written for the Seattle Kraken website, Forbes, The Athletic and CBS Sports. She’s also done play-by-play and analysis for the Premier Hockey Federation, the predecessor of the PWHL, and the Amerigol LATAM Cup, an annual tournament that features teams representing Latin American, Caribbean and other developing hockey countries and territories.

She said calling games all day, every day during the LATAM Cup has helped prepare her for the international flavor of the Olympics.

“Seeing mostly Spanish speaking countries -- although the tournament has grown well beyond that -- seeing a First Nations Team burning sage before a game or the Cuban American teams banging their pots and pans, those are touchpoints that infuse energy into a game," she said, "and that's something that I like to bring to the storytelling whether I'm in the broadcast booth or writing.”

Milano Cortina is Ayala’s second Winter Olympics, but her first with fans in attendance. She covered the 2022 Beijing Olympics, which didn’t have spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the first Winter Games for Dabney, who is assisting Ayala with posting podcast content, graphics, interviews and editing for Black Rosie Media.

The 25-year-old from Ashburn, Virginia, gained notoriety in the hockey world for designing the iconic “Black Rosie” alternate jersey for the New York Riveters of the PHF in 2022.

The jersey featured a flexing Rosie the Riveter reimagined as a Black woman. The popularity of the jersey led to Dabney being tapped to design a Celebration of Black History beanie for the San Jose Sharks last season, a Martin Luther King Day jersey for Erie of the Ontario Hockey League in 2023, and a Black History Month warmup jersey for Oshawa of the OHL in last season.

“It's interesting how everything that I've done so far just really focuses on diversity and hockey and where it’s taken me so far,” Dabney said before leaving for Milan. “I think it’s really exciting that there are different people, different perspectives, different cultures, different journeys that people have to get to the Olympics. It’s so exciting, even though I can’t go as a fan, so I’m getting all my fandom out now.”