This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
When people think of Canadians, usually one of the first responses is “so polite!” or “super friendly!” Canadians take great pride in trying to be nice to people, to a fault. That fault is central to Black Ice, a fascinating documentary about how the push to be “nice” doesn’t have the nuance to deal with the plight of African Americans playing Canada’s sports past time, hockey.
Documentarian Hubert Davis combines the new and old here to tell a complete history of African Americans playing hockey. There are many talking heads from current/former black NHL players today describing their experiences growing up as the strange looking ones in the mostly white ice rinks. To help comfort the current players, Davis uses Darril Fosty and George Fosty’s history of ice hockey book to provide historical context to the game and how even since its early days, black players have been integral to the game of hockey. Throw in a little Canadian history, and you’ve got a richer, fuller context for the history of black Canadians playing hockey in their home country.
The best parts of Black Ice are the tie ins to how important black Canadians were to the game of hockey. Organized white teams formed in the late 1800s, but so did Africville’s Sea-Sides, a founding team in the Colored Hockey League created in 1895 as part of Church/Community activities. The league gets credit for some more modern parts of hockey today, including goaltenders playing the puck and more importantly, the slap shot (until that time sticks had to stay on the ice). The games in the CHL were so popular that white teams would schedule exhibition matches against them because of how much money they brought in.
But then you see the gears of institutional racism get their tendrils on the sport. The avalanche of players, including the first ever black NHL player Willie O’Ree, do a good job showing how ingrained racism is in hockey. Each player comes armed with multiple fans/coaches/rivals/teammates ready willing to use THE “n word”, pretty recently even (like a few years ago recent, yikes). Then you get the veiled stereotyping, like throwing bananas or making monkey sounds. Go out a little further, you get subtler: when these incidents happen, in an effort to be “nice,” everyone looks the other way or do nothing. Even worse, the leagues would take months to do anything, hoping the incident would just go away, or make the black players internalize this desire to be “coachable” or “part of the team” by shutting up and just taking the abuse. Then there’s the financial part: Africville’s history should be celebrated, and it is…as a historical building next to railroad tracks because the community was destroyed by railroads in the 1960s in favor of the “economy.” Herb Carnegie was an early exceptional hockey player, but the Rangers low balled him for his talents repeatedly, so he said no thanks, and as a result, was essentially determined to be a “headcase” and unable to play in the NHL. Political scientist Debra Thompson does a good job summarizing all these little “isolated incidents” into Black Ice’s bigger point about institutional racism, but a I wish doc this wonderfully equipped to showcase what institutional racism looks like made that the gravitational pull of the story.
After you watch Black Ice, you won’t be able to stop thinking about players like Matt Dunba, so filled with internalized anger and hurt he barely can speak, or Saroya Tinker and Akim Aliu, who became consumed by hate because of the constant barrage of cruelty thrown at them. I’m in no place to throw stones, but Canada, if you claim to be this nice, you might want do a little more soul searching after Black Ice and start to make things right. Drake wants this so bad, he convinced LeBron James and Future to produce this movie with him. And he’s in Degrassi, so you know he’s legit.