FIVE YEARS AGO, the Hockey Diversity Alliance was a group chat among several NHL players of color, discussing civil rights issues and the obstacles that have prevented equality within the sport they love.
On Saturday at Canoe Landing Park in Toronto, the HDA is scheduled to host its Summer Fest, a grassroots event for over 2,200 people. They’ll come from diverse communities and different economic circumstances. They’ll meet NHL players and sports celebrities. They’ll also be further exposed to hockey, which has been at the heart of the HDA’s mission.
“We just want to continue to show off the amazing work that we’re doing,” said Akim Aliu, a former player for the Calgary Flames and a founding member of the HDA. “None of us gain anything from this personally, financially, or in any type of way. It’s just the families and communities that continue to blossom and grow through our program. And that’s something that, I think, the world should see.”
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Wayne Simmonds, who played 15 seasons in the NHL and is a founding member of the HDA, called this weekend’s Summer Fest “a wonderful culmination of the last five years of all the work that we’ve been putting in [at the HDA].”
“Obviously, it was a struggle at the start for us, trying to gain traction and everything like that,” he said. “But I think we’ve really been able to sink our teeth into the grassroots level, and that’s kind of where we really wanted to start.”
The HDA-branded event will have ball hockey, food and a carnival for kids.
The eight NHL-affiliated players behind the HDA are scheduled to attend: Aliu, Simmonds, Calgary Flames center Nazem Kadri, New York Islanders forward Anthony Duclair, Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Matt Dumba and retired NHL players Chris Stewart, Joel Ward and Trevor Daley.
Also expected to attend are former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch and quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who has a long history with the HDA. Kaepernick shares representation with Aliu, and participated in a series of videoconference calls with the founding members before the initiative launched.
“He’s someone that we leaned on at the start,” Simmonds said of Kaepernick, now a civil rights activist. “It was good to pick his mind on how his battle went and how he went through it. He said if we were going to do this, obviously we had to stick together no matter what.”
THE HDA WAS FOUNDED in June 2020 during a period of civil unrest in the U.S. after the murder of George Floyd. What started as a text thread among a group of current and former players soon became a first-of-its-kind coalition, with Aliu and Evander Kane — now with the Vancouver Canucks and no longer affiliated with the HDA — as its co-leads.
Those six current and former NHL players announced their intentions in an introductory letter. They wanted to “eradicate racism and intolerance” in hockey.
“Although we will be independent of the NHL, we are hopeful that we will work productively with the league to accomplish these important changes. We believe in the importance of accountability in developing inclusivity and diversity for all involved in our sport, including fans and the league office,” the statement partially read.
The organization had a presence during the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, which were held in the “hub cities” of Toronto and Edmonton because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The NHL acknowledged the nationwide protests by displaying “We Skate For Black Lives” ads on video screens around the rink.
Defenseman Matt Dumba, a founding member of the HDA who was playing for the Minnesota Wild during the 2020 playoffs, opened the NHL’s Western Conference postseason with a heartfelt speech against racial injustice before taking a knee during the U.S. national anthem. He was wearing an HDA sweatshirt.
The HDA pushed hard to effect change in its early months. In August 2020, it published an eight-point pledge that it wanted the NHL to sign, with requests ranging from hiring targets for hockey-related personnel to funding for grassroots initiatives.
After months of negotiations, the HDA announced it would “operate separate and independent” of the NHL, which created its own Player Inclusion Coalition to confront the issues of inequality.
“The first route for us was trying to partner with the league, but we didn’t really see eye to eye on some of the subjects,” Simmonds said.
Within months of its founding, there were debates about the HDA’s motivations and effectiveness. Aliu said the most rewarding part of the past five years was feeling the temperature getting turned down around the HDA’s existence.
“There was controversy. There was blowback and pushback. You can see where we are now,” Aliu said. “When you’re on a ride of a lifetime like this for something that’s so much bigger than us … to see how timid we were on Day 1 to even be associated with this organization, to now being so proud and rocking apparel. We’re just being super proud of what we’ve built and what we continue to do.”
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE for the HDA in the past five years?
“That’s unfortunately an easy question to answer,” Aliu replied.
He said there was robust corporate support in North America for the HDA at the start, but that support has waned.
“That just means that we have to turn kids away because we have a waiting list to get into our programs,” Aliu said. “We’d like to continue to expand, but obviously this is a difficult sport to expand without money.”
Despite those headwinds, the HDA is having some of the most substantive impact in its history.
“We’re flourishing, and I think that’s because we’ve shown who we are and what we are. I think our character has shined brightly,” Aliu said. “Folks that were haters against us now largely see that we’re in it for the right reasons. They’ve seen the impact that we’ve had on kids, on families, on youth as a whole.”
A focus on the grassroots has always been at the heart of the HDA’s mission. Its introductory statement in 2020 included a passage that read: “We will promote diversity at all levels of the game through community outreach and engagement with youth. We will endeavor to make the game more affordable and accessible.”
Simmonds said that after the HDA’s early clashes with the NHL and the coalition’s critics, a renewed focus was on grassroots efforts.
“We realized that everything starts at the beginning. If you can affect change right from the start, then you save yourself more trouble going down the line,” he said.
The HDA’s first successful youth hockey program was in the greater Toronto area in 2022: free hockey clinics for children between 6 and 15 years old from diverse communities. The HDA has run clinics for the past three years.
Its early pilot programs had around 220 young athletes. Aliu estimates that the HDA has 1,500 young players involved in its programs “playing hockey completely free of cost,” with programs running 22 to 26 weeks.
“The numbers speak for themselves. About 45 to 50 of those players have moved on to play mainstream competitive hockey as well,” Kadri told ESPN. “These are kids growing more of a passion for the sport. The initial obstacle was just the introduction to hockey, and that’s what we’ve provided.”
The HDA supports programs in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal and Halifax, and is launching one in Vancouver. Aliu said there have been conversations about launching one in Chicago as well. The HDA said it has an 80% retention rate in its programs.
Aliu said that though the HDA is dedicated to promoting “people of color, because I think they’ve been largely overlooked for a very, very long time,” the organization is focused on breaking down all barriers to entry for young disadvantaged players — especially economic ones.
“We just wanted to help kids that couldn’t afford to play hockey,” Aliu said. “Our programs have 40% girls. Our programs have 30% white kids in them. White kids can be poor, Black kids can be poor, brown kids can be poor, Asian kids can be poor and not be able to access the game of hockey because of how financially demanding it is.”
Kadri said his most rewarding experience with the HDA was hearing from families that have gone through the program.
“I’ve had people tell me that the HDA has helped their kids make friends because of the camaraderie aspect of playing a sport they love,” he said. “Just seeing the excitement on the parents’ faces when they’re telling us these stories, you kind of have a realization of, ‘OK, this is why we’re doing this.'”
WHAT DOES THE HDA want to accomplish in the next five years?
“We’re just trying to bring hockey to the world. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here,” Simmonds said. “We’re trying to take a game that we love but that’s had some problems — and our game does have problems and everybody knows it — and expand the game. The more we can expand the game, the better we can make the game.”
Aliu acknowledges that “a lot is out of our control” when it comes to the HDA’s future.
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“All we can do is continue to push, continue to grow, continue to look for financial opportunities,” he said. “That’s really what it boils down to: People wanting to support a cause to help communities that have been largely overlooked.”
Could some of that support come from the NHL? There’s no relationship between the league, the Player Inclusion Coalition and the Hockey Diversity Alliance.
Aliu acknowledged it was a “pipe dream” to have the HDA and NHL become partners one day, but believes their objectives can be aligned.
“We’re tapping into a ton of different demographics. It’ll grow viewership, it’ll grow talent, it’ll grow all the things that they care about,” he said. “The hockey establishment is huge for us. If we’re doing this together, I think we can get to a place where everybody feels welcome and safe in that space.”
Kadri, who’s entering his 16th NHL season, said he has never experienced any friction with the league about his role in the HDA. He believes both organizations have common objectives and that a partnership isn’t impossible.
“Even though we might do it in different ways, I think the end goal is very similar,” Kadri said. “One of these days, it might come to fruition, but as of right now, we are completely independent. And what a long way we’ve come.”
