BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – Hockey’s continued growth in non-traditional communities received a big boost with the line of all-black players deployed by the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Head Coach, Jon Cooper, at the end of the NHL’s regular season against their in-state and soon-to-be playoff rival, the Florida Panthers.
Tampa Bay suited up Gemel Smith, the older brother of Detroit Red Wings’ Givani Smith, Mathieu Joseph, whose younger brother Pierre-Olivier is with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and ex-Hartford Wolf Pack, Daniel Walcott on Tuesday night.
HISTORY OF ALL-BLACK LINES
In hockey, there have been six all-black line combinations who’ve played together at various sports levels.
The first known line was sent out on the ice in 1948-49 in the Quebec Senior Hockey League (QSHL). Brothers Herb and Ozzie Carnegie took the ice with Manny McIntyre for the Sherbrooke St. Francois.
It wasn’t until February of 1970 when the St. Mary’s University Huskies (Halifax, NS) had a game against Mount Allison University (Sackville, New Brunswick) in a Canadian college contest in the Atlantic University Athletic Association (AUAA) as it was called then. The school’s beloved and revered head coach, Bob Boucher, put together a trio of Percy Paris, Darrell Maxwell, and Bob Dawson.
Skip ahead to the next known example in 1998-99 when the United Hockey League’s Flint Generals sent out Kahil Thomas, Jayson Payne, and Nick Forbes to skate together. That team also featured ex-New Haven Nighthawk, Ross Wilson, and ex-New Haven Senator Lorne Knauft.
Thomas reprised his role again with the Jacksonville Barracudas (SPHL) in 2006-07, skating alongside Hamden’s Dan Hickman and a goalie turned forward for Ty Garner.
Garner had suffered a serious groin injury in Norway the year before. He was advised by doctors not to play at all, let alone goalie, for a year, so he played as a forward instead and made history.
HAMDEN’S HICKMAN
Hickman played for one of the state’s premier public school programs, the Hamden High School Green Dragons. He would play Division-III college hockey with Southern New Hampshire University (Northeast-10) (formerly known as New Hampshire College).
The Barracudas would be his second pro season of the four he would eventually play. Hickman skated for three teams that season having been traded late in the season by the Pee Dee (SC) Cyclones to Jacksonville.
“Our coach put the line together. I think he and Ty might have been chatting,” remarked Hickman in a phone interview. ”The really neat thing is we had great camaraderie off the ice. We hung out on the beach, hit the arcades, and to be honest; I had never played on a team with three black players before at any level.
HICKMAN’S THOUGHTS
“We were a good line, too, because Khalil was a shifty quick player. I was kind of an in-between player with finesse and physical play, and Ty was a beast out there. We were together a few games, but I think we helped spark the team. We went all the way to the championship finals that year.”
When asked if he realized at the time how unique and rare it was at that point to have an all-black line skating together, he replied, “We had talked about it, and Khalil had done it earlier. We really wanted to do it and, but I didn’t realize how rare it really is at the time.”
In his first year, Hickman skated with four different teams in four different leagues before concluding his minor pro career in the Nutmeg State, playing for the Danbury Mad Hatters of the Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL).
On March 22, 2021, Thomas’s son, Akil, was united with the LA Kings’ top draft pick last season, Quinton Byfield, and NHL vet Devante Smith-Pelly. They played on a line for the AHL Ontario Reign against the Bakersfield Condors in a 5-4 shootout win.
WILLIE O’REE
In minor league hockey, the great NHL Hall-Of-Famer, Willie O’Ree, played in the AHL for the New Haven Nighthawks in their first season in 1972-73. He played fifty games before heading back to his current home city of San Diego. He also played for the old Western Hockey League, San Diego Gulls, for five seasons in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
O’Ree was drafted by the WHA’s Los Angeles Sharks on February 12, 1972, in Anaheim. Despite living in the area, he never received a contract offer.
When the WHA’s San Diego Mariners came to town (1974-1977) with his old New Haven Nighthawks teammate, Kevin Morrison, there were some discussions, but not much came of it.
BREAKING THE COLOR LINE
O’Ree broke the NHL color barrier on January 18, 1958, to play for the Boston BruinsCanada against the Montreal Canadiens. He would score his first NHL goal nearly two years later, in 1960, with the Bruins against the Canadiens.
O’Ree has stated that at the time, he was not aware he had done anything of significance.
MEETING JACKIE ROBINSON
O’Ree followed in the footsteps of Jackie Robinson, whom he met first on a youth baseball trip to Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn at age 14 in 1949, two years after Robinson had broken the color barrier (April 15, 1947) in baseball.
They would meet again at an NAACP luncheon in 1962. O’Ree was skating for the minor pro WHL, Los Angeles Blades, at the time.
Robinson was a fixture in the city of Montreal where O’ Ree broke the NHL color barrier when they had a Triple AAA farm team called the Royals in 1946.
The first game for Robinson was on the road on April 15, 1946, in Jersey City, NJ, at Roosevelt Stadium before an SRO crowd in a 14-1 win. Robinson helped his team win the International League championship later that season in Montreal.
BLIND IN ONE EYE
O’Ree played his off-wing side because he was blind in one eye. The accident was suffered in 1955 playing for the Kitchener Canucks (OHA) when he was hit by the puck in his right eye. He never divulged it to anybody but still managed to have a productive minor pro career.
OTHER HISTORICAL CONTRIBUTORS
The first black professional player in the United States was Art Dorrington. Like O’Ree, he was a fellow Canadian Maritimer from Truro, Nova Scotia. Dorrington is 91-years-old and played in the old Eastern Hockey League in the late 1940s and 1950s.
The New Haven Nighthawks had two other black players of note. Dave Nicholls played one season with the 1985-86 Nighthawks and just six games the following season before being sent to Flint (IHL).
The 6’7 tough-as-nails, Peter Worrell, played sixty games in a little over a season from 1997-1999 with the Beast of New Haven.
In roller hockey, the Connecticut Coasters, who graced the concrete of the New Haven Coliseum for a summer in 1993, had a player. He was a former Middletown resident, Berkley Hoagland, who got his hockey baptism at Wesleyan University.
Hoagland had been an assistant coach with Huntington Beach (CA) H.S. However, he stopped two years ago, but has been involved in ice and roller hockey in California for over twenty years and owns a local LA BBQ restaurant chain catering business.
THE FIRST FOR HARTFORD WOLF PACK
The Wolf Pack have had many minority players in their team history.
The first edition featured defenseman Jason Doig, and later, Donald Brashear. Ryan Constan is a full-blooded Cree Indian, while goalie Al Montoya is a Cuban-American. Perhaps their most successful player is Maple Leafs’ assistant coach, Manny Malhotra, of Indian-Canadian descent.
The CT Whale had one minority player in Andre Deveaux.
The Wolf Pack 2.0 has had Akim Aliu, Boo Nieves, Charles Williams, James Sanchez, and Walcott.
SOUND TIGERS
The former Bridgeport Sound Tigers, who have been re-christened as the Bridgeport Islanders, have had their share of minority players.
Rhett Rakhshani grew up in California, learning hockey on the streets and in roller hockey leagues. Interestingly, Hoagland was one of his coaches. He is a second-generation Iranian-American.
Joey Haddad played eight games with the Sound Tigers. He was a second-generation Lebanese-Canadian who comes from a very fertile Middle Eastern hockey community of Lebanese-Syrian heritage. It’s located in Sydney, Nova Scotia, known locally as the ”The Gaza Strip.”
Alaska’s Justin Johnson is one of 14 Alaskans to play in the NHL that includes ex-Pack, Joey Crabb.
Another Alaskan is New Haven Blades legend Kevin “Squid” Morrison. His mother was Lebanese, and his father of Scottish background. He’s Haddad’s first cousin, as his mother’s maiden name was Haddad.
Morrison loves being part of this niche part of hockey history.
OTHER MINORITY PLAYERS
The Hartford Whalers had Ray Neufeld and Scott “Chief” Daniels, a full Cree Indian, plus assistant coach Ted Noland, a full-blood Ojibway Native Canadian.
Blair Atcheynum, a Whalers draft pick, never played for the team but did play for the New Haven Senators (AHL). He was also a full-Cree Indian like Daniels.
The New England Whalers had one player, Henry Taylor, on their 1976-77 team. He played in some exhibition games but played for two years with the famous Johnstown (PA) Jets in the old North American Hockey League (NAHL).
The New Haven Blades of the old Eastern Hockey League in the 1950s and 1960s. They had two players in Alf Lewsey who skated for two years and played on the 1955-56 championship team. The following season, Ray Leacock, played on the 1957-58 team for his last pro season.
Lewsey was from Winnipeg and Leacock from Montreal.
A new chapter could be written as the all-black college Tennessee State University is actively looking into making hockey a Division-I varsity sport and could become the first all-black college to do so in US history.
- Credit former Meriden Record-Journal sports reporter Geoge Dalek, who covered pro hockey for 30 years, for this info.
- Credit to Aubrey Johnson and John Gibbons from the Eastern Hockey League Facebook page for their information on the New Haven Blades.
