07.07.2023; Updated: 07.10.2023
The Carnegie Initiative (The CI) was well represented at the Annual Black Hockey Summit at Scotiabank Pond in North York, Ontario this week. The CI’s Co-Chair Bernice Carnegie along with her daughter Brooke Chambers and nephew Rane Carnegie, both of whom serve as advisors to The CI, attended the event held by Hockey Equality.
Rane’s two children, Myles and Mya, and Bernice’s only grandson, five-year-old Jacob Chambers were among the kids participating in the summit. It marked Mya’s first time playing hockey after declaring earlier in the week her wishes to be a hockey player.
The summit brought together Black-led hockey programs from Toronto and surrounding areas to provide a unique experience for house league to elite Black hockey players to gather, improve, connect, and develop relationships. Seaside Hockey, founded by 2023 Herbert Carnegie Trailblazer Award winner Kirk Brooks, played a big role in this week’s event that is focused on growing diversity in the future leaders of the hockey community. Brooks’ Skillz Hockey had hosted this event for the past 30 years before collaborating with Hockey Equality for this year’s summit.
Bernice took part in a special panel Black Queens of Hockey: Straight Talk. The session, that followed the screening of the film “Ice Queens,” was moderated by Marsha-Gaye Knight and included three other panelists: Hockey Hall of Famer and The CI Board Member Angela James and players Dayton O’Donoghue, and Saroya Tinker. The talk focused on their experiences, on and off the ice, as Black women.
The mission of Hockey Equality is “to create diversity at all levels of the game of hockey. We achieve this by lowering financial barriers for equity deserving BIPOC and female youth, creating representative environments in our programs, and advocation and re-education in the minor hockey community.”
