Black hockey hall of fame proposed for Dartmouth
From the Halifax Daily News - Saturday, August 26thBlack hall of fame has lofty plans for future
By Philip Croucher
The new Black Hockey and Sports Hall of Fame has big plans for its future. It also knows everything can't happen overnight.
That's why this weekend's inaugural Black Hockey and Sports Hall of Fame conference at the Dartmouth Sportsplex is being seen as a positive first step in laying the group's foundation, which is to recognize the accomplishments of blacks in sports across North America.
The highlight of the three-day conference is an afternoon ceremony tomorrow at 12:30 p.m., where 51 people will be inducted into the new Hall of Fame. Some of the names being inducted include Bill Riley and Willie O'Ree of hockey fame, boxing's Buddy Daye, and local author Charles Saunders, an editorial writer and copy editor at The Daily News.
"This is a very big day. Extremely exciting," said Cpl. Craig Smith, a leading organizer for the conference. "Like anything, you walk into it and you're not sure how it's going to go.
"But since the news release came out in the papers on Monday, everybody's phones have been ringing off the hook, including here at the Dartmouth Sportsplex."
Smith, speaking after a news conference yesterday to kick-off the three-day event, said not everything is known about past accomplishments by blacks in sports, and the Hall serves as a way to get these stories out to the public.
Want partnerships
But the group added it isn't looking to compete against other Hall's, like the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame. Instead, they want to partner with them.
Dartmouth was chosen to host the first conference because Nova Scotia has the oldest black communities in Canada. By year three, the BHSHF wants to open its Hall of Fame building, either in Dartmouth or North Preston.
It also wants to have more people in the Hall represented from the rest of Canada, and the United States. Of the 51 people being inducted tomorrow, 41 are Nova Scotians.
"The seed has been planted. We grow from Nova Scotia here," said Smith, whose brother Mark is in the Nova Scotia hall of fame as a hurler for fastpitch.
"Primarily, again, it's Nova Scotian, and then it will grow there to encompass the whole country. And hopefully, North America. That's the plan."
On hand for yesterday's press conference was 86-year-old Herb Carnegie, a talented hockey player in the 1940s and '50s, who was kept out of the NHL because of his colour. Carnegie is fully behind this new Hall.
"It's a wonderful initiative to bring something to the forefront," said Carnegie, whose grandson, Rane, played for the Halifax Mooseheads from 2004 to 2006. "From hidden past, you might say."
pcroucher@hfxnews.ca