Color of Hockey: MN Unbounded, Hockey Niñas open doors for girls

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past nine years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles MN Unbounded and the Hockey Niñas, two teams of all girls of color that will participate in Minnesota's Os Shootout tournament in August.
Mia Lang said she smiles when she looks around the locker room of her summer tournament hockey team.

"It makes me feel excited that we can put a team together with people of color because you don't see, we don't see, that many people of color playing on one team," Lang said. "It makes me happy to have the opportunity to do this."
Lang, a 10-year-old from Richfield, Minnesota, is a member of MN Unbounded and the Hockey Niñas, Under-10 and Under-12 teams comprised of all girls of color that will compete for the first time at the 2021 Os Shootout, a tournament in Edina, Minnesota, Aug. 12-15.
The teams are led by Tina Kampa, a former Bemidji State University defenseman who was drafted by the Minnesota Whitecaps of the National Women's Hockey League in June.
Kampa assembled a coaching staff of women of color to assist her that includes Nina Rodgers, a Whitecaps forward and a two-time NCAA Division I champion (2014-15, 2015-16) with the University of Minnesota; Jennifer Costa, a University of Maine forward who previously played for Dartmouth College; Crystalyn Hengler, a University of Minnesota defenseman; Union College forward Maia Martinez; and Nikki Nightengale, a former All-American defenseman for Augsburg University.

The idea for the all-POC girls' team and coaching staff came from Kampa and Meredith Lang, whose daughters, Mia and 12-year-old Aubrey, are on the tournament rosters.
Meredith, who is Black, said she was inspired by reading Color of Hockey stories about a team of all Black and Hispanic male players organized by the NextGen AAA Foundation that competed in the Beantown Summer Classic in New Hampshire last summer.
The team, coached by former NHL players Mike Grier, now a hockey operations adviser for the New York Rangers, and Bryce Salvador, who was New Jersey Devils captain from 2012-15 and now a hockey analyst for MSG Networks, won the prestigious invitation-only tournament.

The NextGen team will try to defend its title at the summer classic Aug. 7-10 at the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
"Just reading about those guys and their experience playing on a team like that, I wanted my daughters to have that same experience," Meredith said. "I wanted them to have the opportunity to play and bond with girls who look like them."
Kampa, a member of the College Hockey for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee that was formed in May, said she got involved because she was looking for a way to make a difference in hockey and society following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, while he was in the custody of Minneapolis police in May 2020. Kampa is of Colombian heritage.
"Being someone who grew up with very few faces similar to mine, I knew there were others out there that felt the way I felt about wanting to do something more," Kampa said. "Trying to grow the game and make it more diverse and inclusive is a real passion of mine. It is so important that these girls feel like they are accepted and valued while playing hockey. I want all kids of color to be a part of the game."
Kampa and Meredith Lang met through Jennifer Flowers, vice president of the Western Collegiate Hockey League, their women's hockey commissioner and a College Hockey for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion member.
"It was just the stars aligning when Tina approached me about coaching girls," Meredith said. "It was just a matter of reaching out to people after that. And the people that I knew, knew other people and reached out to them. It was a domino effect. Now I've got parents driving 45-50 minutes to get their kids to one of our practices."

Making hockey more diverse has been a mission for Meredith and her daughters. They, along with Laura Janzig de la Luz and her daughters, Elisa, 9, and Adelyn, 12, formed a squad about two years ago, calling themselves the Hockey Niñas.
"My daughters and their best friends, who are Mexican-American, they want to encourage other girls of color to play the game," Lang said. "And so that's kind of how it started, just posting their pictures, having fun playing and connecting with other girls. They really just want to normalize Black and brown faces in the game."
Tournament organizers and the hockey community embraced the entry of the all-POC girls' teams. Os Hockey Training, a girls' hockey company that operates the 60-team tournament, is sponsoring the teams.
The Richfield Ice Arena, Bloomington Ice Gardens and ETS Sports Performance have provided reduced rates for practice ice time and dry-land training facilities for the girls ahead of the tournament.
"For me, it's all about growing the game," said Winny Brodt Brown, Os Hockey Training's founder and director, a Whitecaps defenseman and a former member of the United States women's national team. "Any way that I can help out, get more girls playing, giving more opportunities, I think that's the greatest thing. I think it's a great cause and I think it's going to be super-fun for these kids."
Meredith Lang said it would be great if MN Unbounded + Hockey Niñas win their Os Shootout divisions the way the NextGen players won the Beantown tournament, but she stressed that fellowship and bonding among the players is more important than taking home trophies.
"But give us a year under our belt and we're going to be unstoppable," she said.
Photos courtesy of Cyndi Nightengale Photography