Changing hockey culture from the ice up

Hockey parent Wayne Connors knows what it's like to try to change the culture inside the sport of hockey.

Last winter, he and his son Mark -- a 16-year-old goalie for the Halifax Hawks U18 AA team -- blew the whistle on racial slurs on the ice.

“And it was important for him, for us, to address the issue head on,” says Connors.

It took months for player suspensions to come because of what happened to Mark both off and on the ice.

But before that, there were official apologies and an anti-racism campaign that spread to other teams in the league. Hockey PEI, which represents hockey in the province where the incident took place, also brought in a diversity specialist.

Now, Connors is the first vice-president of community and diversity for the Halifax Hawks, with the goal of making the game inclusive for all.

“It's a step, it's not going to change it overnight, we know that, but at least it's a step forward, it's still going to take time,” he said.

Former university hockey player and past Nova Scotia MLA Percy Paris knows all too well how much time change can take.

Back in 1970, Paris was among the players on the first all-Black forward line in Canadian university hockey history, as a member of the Saint Mary’s Huskies.

However, when he tried to turn that barrier breaking moment into meaningful change in the sport, he says he was stone-walled.

“Everybody turned up their nose at me, they had no interest,” recalls Paris.

At the time, Paris says he had reached out to the then Canadian Hockey League -- both leaders and individual teams -- with the idea of creating diversity education for players at training camp.

But Paris says the very idea was rejected outright.

“Hockey is a white man's world, and I think they were willing to do anything and everything to protect that world,” he says.

In a sport that has dealt with its fair share of recurring scandals over the decades, including incidents of racism, sexual abuse, and discrimination, Paris says the Hockey Canada scandal is just the latest wake-up call for the sport.

“You're either going to be part of the change, or you're going to be part of the change kicking and screaming. And now they're kicking and screaming, but change is going to come,” he says.

“I think the only way we may get change is going from grass root, to the elite level,” says Charlene Weaving, a professor of the Human Kinetics department at Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.

Weaving has studied gender equity in various sports, an issue that has also cast a shadow over hockey.

She says the stance of minor hockey organizations during the Hockey Canada scandal is a sign of the will to transform the sport from within.

“We can't rely on Hockey Canada to make those changes, there's going to be an important role for grassroots, minor hockey to play across the country," she says.

Wayne Connors agrees.

“It starts with the grassroots, it starts with the coaching staff, even the parents, even in the locker room,” he says. “It starts there too.”