| Sport | Ice hockey |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1895 |
| Founder |
|
| Ceased | c. 1911 and 1930 |
| Country | Canada |
The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes (CHL) was an all-black ice hockey league founded in Nova Scotia in 1895, [1] which featured teams from across Canada's Maritime Provinces. [2] [3] The league operated for several decades lasting until 1930. [4] [5] [6] [7]
The league was founded in 1895 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada by a group of four black Baptist leaders and black intellectuals: Pastor James Borden of Dartmouth Church, James A.R Kinney, lawyer and community leader James Robinson Johnston, and lawyer and Pan-African organizer Henry Sylvester Williams. [8] The league was constructed to attract young black men to Sunday worship with the promise of a hockey game between rival churches after the services. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "with the influence of the Black Nationalism Movement—and with rising interest in the sport of hockey—the league came to be seen as a potential driving force for the equality of Black Canadians." [9]
Among the teams in the league were the Halifax Eurekas, based in Halifax, and the Amherst Royals, based in Amherst. [9] At its zenith, the league had teams in seven communities in Nova Scotia and one in Prince Edward Island. [9]
With as many as a dozen teams, over 400 Black Canadian players from across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island participated in competition. [10] The Colored Hockey League is credited by some[ who? ] as being the first league to allow the goaltender to leave his feet to cover a puck in 1900. This practice was not permitted elsewhere until the formation of the National Hockey League in 1917. It is also claimed that the first player to use the slapshot was Eddie Martin of the Halifax Eureka in 1906. [11] [12]
In January 2020, Canada Post issued a postage stamp featuring the 1906 champion Halifax Eurekas to commemorate the history of black hockey players in Canada. [9] [13]
The history of the league is profiled in Darril Fosty and George Fosty's 2004 non-fiction book Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925, 2014 book Tribes: An International Hockey History, which expands on their previous work, and in Hubert Davis's 2022 documentary film Black Ice . [14]
The history of the league, including its destruction and the destruction of its black community in Africville by the Halifax government trying to expand their railway, is also visited in Canadaland's Hockey #2 — "The Birth of Black Hockey" [15]
Nova Scotia is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Sydney is a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolved on 1 August 1995, when it was amalgamated into the regional municipality.
Dartmouth is a built-up community of Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. Located on the eastern shore of Halifax Harbour, Dartmouth has 72,139 residents as of 2021.
Truro is a town in central Nova Scotia, Canada. Truro is the shire town of Colchester County and is located on the south side of the Salmon River floodplain, close to the river's mouth at the eastern end of Cobequid Bay.
Amherst is a town in northwestern Nova Scotia, Canada, located at the northeast end of the Cumberland Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy, and 22 km (14 mi) south of the Northumberland Strait. The town sits on a height of land at the eastern boundary of the Isthmus of Chignecto and Tantramar Marshes, 3 km (1.9 mi) east of the interprovincial border with New Brunswick and 65 km (40 mi) southeast of the city of Moncton. It is 60 km (37 mi) southwest of the New Brunswick abutment of the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island at Cape Jourimain.
A slapshot is a powerful shot in ice hockey. Its advantage is as a high-speed shot that can be taken from a long distance; the disadvantage is the long time to set it up as well as its low accuracy.
Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2022, it is estimated that the population of the Halifax CMA was 480,582, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The regional municipality consists of four former municipalities that were amalgamated in 1996: Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax County.
The Zatzman Sportsplex is an indoor sports and community centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, opened 1982 and known as the Dartmouth Sportsplex until 2019. It houses an arena, a gymnasium, two swimming pools, and other fitness, leisure and events facilities. It is managed by the Dartmouth Sportsplex Community Association, a non-profit organization which runs the facility on behalf of the Halifax Regional Council.
Woodlawn High School is a Canadian public school, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It is operated by the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) and is an International Baccalaureate (IB) world school, offering the Diploma program. It also offers the O2 program.
The Maritime Junior Hockey League (MHL) is a Junior A ice hockey league under Hockey Canada, a part of the Canadian Junior Hockey League. It consists of six teams from New Brunswick, which make up the EastLink North Division, five teams from Nova Scotia, and one team from Prince Edward Island which make up the Eastlink South Division. The winner of the MHL playoffs competes for the Fred Page Cup against the winners of the Quebec Junior AAA Hockey League and the Central Junior A Hockey League. The winner of the Fred Page Cup then moves on to compete for the Canadian National Junior A Championship, formerly known as the Royal Bank Cup.
The Amherst Ramblers are a Junior A Hockey League team based in Amherst, Nova Scotia. The team is a member of the Maritime Hockey League and are in the EastLink South Division. All home games are played out of the 2,500 seat Amherst Stadium. The season usually runs from mid-September to mid March every year.
The Nova Scotia Regional Junior Hockey League is a Junior "C" ice hockey league in Nova Scotia, Canada, sanctioned by Hockey Canada. League playoff winners compete in the Maritime-Hockey North Junior C Championships.
Black Nova Scotians are Black Canadians whose ancestors primarily date back to the Colonial United States as slaves or freemen, later arriving in Nova Scotia, Canada, during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As of the 2021 Census of Canada, 28,220 Black people live in Nova Scotia, most in Halifax. Since the 1950s, numerous Black Nova Scotians have migrated to Toronto for its larger range of opportunities. Before the immigration reforms of 1967, Black Nova Scotians formed 37% of the total Black Canadian population.
Malcolm Sterling Davis is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Davis played for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League and its American Hockey League farm team, the Rochester Americans, and later with TPS Turku in Finland.
The Nova Scotia Clippers were a professional soccer team based in the original Canadian Soccer League. They were based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but played their matches in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia at Beazley Field. They played only a single season in 1991.
The Valley Wildcats are a Canadian junior ice hockey franchise from the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia. The team is a member of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League and plays in the EastLink Division. They play their home games in the Kings Mutual Century Centre in Berwick, Nova Scotia.
The history of Black players in North American ice hockey has roots dating back to the late 19th century. The first Black ice hockey star was Herb Carnegie during the Great Depression. Willie O'Ree broke the NHL's Black color barrier with the Boston Bruins in 1958.
Darril Wayne Fosty is a Canadian-born Pulitzer-nominated journalist, author, and documentarian.
The Maritime Amateur Hockey Association (MAHA) was a governing body for amateur ice hockey in the Maritimes of Canada. It was a branch member of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1928 to 1974, with its jurisdiction including the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The MAHA operated leagues for senior ice hockey which competed for the Allan Cup, and leagues for junior ice hockey which competed for the Memorial Cup. The New Brunswick Amateur Hockey Association separated from the MAHA in 1968, and the MAHA ceased to exist after the Nova Scotia Hockey Association and Prince Edward Island Hockey Association were established in 1974.
Black Ice is a 2022 Canadian documentary film, directed by Hubert Davis and produced by Vinay Virmani. Based in part on Darril Fosty and George Fosty's 2004 non-fiction book Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925, the film presents a history of the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes of the early 20th century, and the lingering history of anti-black racism in the sport of ice hockey.
