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‘Soul on Ice’ movie resonates with minority hockey legends in England

27 Friday Oct 2017

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LONDON – They sat in the back of the movie theater last weekend, transfixed by Canadian filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future.”

“I felt like he was telling our story,” Brian Biddulph said after the London premiere of Mason’s award-winning documentary that chronicles the history, struggles, and growing impact of black players in North America and in the National Hockey League.

The movie spoke to Biddulph, a Londoner who played pro and semi-pro hockey in from 1982 to 2000. The rugged defenseman suffered through being called “Leroy” – after character Leroy Robinson from the 1980s hit movie and television show “Fame” – by white teammates at a Team Great Britain training camp.

It spoke to Charles Dacres, who had a lengthy playing career in the United Kingdom and is currently a director for the English Ice Hockey Association and a board member for Ice Hockey U.K., the kingdom’s governing body for the sport.

A scene in the film in which forward Val James, who was the NHL’s first U.S.-born black player, is showered with racial epithets by fans during a 1981 minor league game in Virginia took Dacres back to a racially unruly road game that he endured during his playing days.

There “was a mob of guys that were actually outside the changing room, baying for my blood, wanting me to come out,” Dacres recalled.

“We wound up being escorted out of that city – police escort out of the city,” he said. “I was the only black guy on the team. They were waiting for me on the exit route from the rink. We had to go out the back door. It probably was one of the worst moments of my life.”

It spoke to Mohammed Ashraff, a former Ice Hockey U.K. president. It spoke to Erskine Douglas, who captained and coached pro teams in England and served as the head of coaching for the EIHA.

It spoke to Eddie Joseph, a former semi-pro player who’s paying it forward hockey-wise through a “Hockey is for Everyone”-type program he runs at an East London rink.

U.K. minority hockey legends, left to right, Charles Dacres, Mohammed Ashraff, Brian Biddulph, London Deputy Mayor Matthew Ryder, Erskine Douglas, and Eddie Joseph at “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” screening in London.

The documentary also spoke to London Deputy Mayor Matthew Ryder, who marveled at the impact that black Canadians and Americans have had on hockey.

Ryder and the EIHA helped make the “Soul on Ice”  showing possible as part of the U.K.’s Black History Month activities. The deputy mayor came away from the screening with a lesson that the United Kingdom has a rich minority hockey history of its own.

Dacres said the plight of minority players in the United Kingdom has improved since the days that he, Ashraff, Douglas, Joseph, and Biddulph skated.

There’s still a long way to go, Dacres added. And bringing a film like “Soul on Ice” to England helps.

“It’s important to recognize that not only did this film raise awareness of black players in the NHL, it raised awareness of ice hockey in the UK and the impact that minorities face in trying to access a sport where the playing numbers of ethnic minorities is significantly less than one percent,” he said.

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‘Soul on Ice’ documentary to make London debut for U.K.’s Black History Month

04 Monday Sep 2017

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“Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future,” the award-winning black hockey history documentary, is heading to London in October as part of the United Kingdom’s Black History Month celebration.

Canadian filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s hockey labor of love is scheduled to be screened at London’s Picturehouse Central on Saturday, Oct. 21 at 10:30 a.m., and Sunday, Oct. 22, at 9 p.m. The screenings will be followed by question and answer sessions with Mason.

As part of the Ourscreen program, advance tickets are sold for the two events. Tickets can be purchased online through the Ourscreen website linked here.

“Soul on Ice Past, Present and Future” chronicles the joy and the pain experienced by black players,  from members of the ground-breaking Colored Hockey League in the Canadian Maritimes from 1895 to 1925 to the stars skating on National Hockey League’s 31 teams.

Some familiar faces  – past and present – share their hockey stories: Philadelphia Flyers  All-Star forward Wayne Simmonds, Detroit Red Wings defenseman Trevor Daley, San Jose Sharks forward Joel Ward, Edmonton Oilers goaltending great Grant Fuhr, Buffalo Sabres/Quebec Nordiques/New York Rangers sniper Tony McKegney, and former Sabres/Toronto Maple Leafs tough guy Val James, the NHL’s first black player born in the United States.

Filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason (right) talks hockey with Detroit Red Wings defenseman Trevor Daley in “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future.”

Mason devoted nearly four years and spent about $200,000 of mostly his own money to make the film. It won a People’s Choice Award at the Edmonton International Film Festival  in October 2015.

The NHL was so impressed by “Soul on Ice’s” educational and uplifting message that it hosted the film’s U.S. premiere in Washington in January 2016 and aired it on the NHL Network in February 2016 to commemorate U.S. Black History Month.

Vancouver Canucks defensive prospect Jordan Subban, left, prepares parents Karl and Maria for their close-ups in “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future.” Karl and Maria are also the parents of Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban and Boston Bruins goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban.

Charles Dacres, a director for the English Ice Hockey Association, and a board member for Ice Hockey UK, said Mason’s film is perfect viewing for the U.K.’s Black History Month.

“It’s about doing some myth-breaking. You look at other sports where black athletes are underrepresented, and it’s a struggle to try to encourage young black people to get into them,” Dacres told me recently. “The parents will say ‘Why are you bothering the kids.’ And the kid’s mates will say ‘Hockey’s not the sport for you, black guys don’t skate.’ It’s about showing that we have some pioneers and some very strong role models that actually give people and young children something to work toward and aspire to.”

Charles Dacres, left, a director for the English Ice Hockey Association, says showing “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” in London will help shatter the myth that black people don’t participate in certain sports (Phtoto/Courtesy Charles Dacres).

The movie is also deeply personal for Dacres, who endured racial slurs in his younger days when he played with the Bradford Bulldogs.

“They just kind of said ‘Just get on with it, mate, just play the game and get on with it,'” Dacres recalled the reaction to the slurs. “Today, we don’t need to do that. We can challenge that poor negative behavior but we can do that by showing some positive role models.”

Although there are few hockey players of color in the United Kingdom, they have made their presence felt.

Hilton Ruggles was one of the most prolific scorers in British hockey history in a career that spanned from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s.

Hilton Ruggles, a Montreal-born left wing, tallied 1,096 goals, 929 assists and 2,200 penalty minutes in 946 games in the British Hockey League, British Ice Hockey Superleague, and the United Kingdom’s Elite Ice Hockey League. Ruggles was inducted into the UK Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Forward David Clarke is the popular face of the EIHL’s Nottingham Panthers.

He’s one of the United Kingdom’s most-decorated players, having won an EIHL championship, an International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship Gold Medal in Division D1B in 2016-17, and scoring more goals than any other British-born player in the EIHL in 2006-07, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14.

Clarke, a member of Great Britain’s national team, has notched 289 goals and 238 assists in 553 EIHL games.

Nottingham Panthers forward David Clarke is also a mainstay for Great Britain’s national hockey team (Photo/Dean Woolley).

And several talented black NHL players have found their way across the pond to play. Rumun Ndur, a Nigerian-born defenseman, played for the Sabres and Atlanta Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets) before skating for the EIHL’s Coventry Blaze and Clarke’s Panthers in Nottingham.

Former Toronto Maple Leafs right wing John Craighead , an American, played for the Panthers from 2003 to 2005.  Anthony Stewart, a  Canadian right wing who played for the Thrashers, Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes, suited up for the Panthers in 2012-13 during the NHL’s player lockout that season.

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‘Soul on Ice’ star Jaden Lindo seeking to rewrite script toward NHL career

17 Wednesday May 2017

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Jaden Lindo loves a happy ending to a movie as much as anyone.

Lindo thought he provided one as a leading man in filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s excellent black hockey history documentary “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future.”

Mason’s camera followed Lindo, then a forward for the Ontario Hockey League’s Owen Sound Attack, through the high of awaiting the 2014 National Hockey League Draft and the low of suffering a severe season-ending knee injury that jeopardized his draft prospects.

Jaden Lindo scored 21 goals for the Sarnia Sting in 2016-17 (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

The dramatic arc in the film ends with the Pittsburgh Penguins taking the injured Lindo in the sixth round with the 173rd overall pick in the draft. Happily ever-after, right?  Well, not yet.

“It didn’t work out the way I hoped with Pittsburgh, but there are different routes to getting to there (to the NHL),” Lindo told me in a recent telephone conversation from Accra, Ghana, where he and his family were vacationing. “There’s still a lot more for me to achieve and I still have a lot of potential that I still haven’t reached.  I’m completely optimistic.”

Pittsburgh signed Lindo to an amateur tryout agreement in 2015, and he even saw some exhibition game time with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

But things didn’t work out with the Pens. Lindo returned to Owen Sound where the 6-foot-2, 214-pound right wing had 14 goals and 16 assists in the 2015-16 season.

He was traded to the Sarnia Sting for the 2016-17 season and tallied 21 goals and 14 assists in 58 games as a 21-year-old in his final year of OHL eligibility.

Lindo says his script to the NHL isn’t finished. He’s committed to play Canadian college hockey at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario this fall.  The team, which posted a 24-14-0 record last season, is stocked with former major junior players.

Other former major junior players have taken the Canadian college route and landed in the NHL, most notably San Jose Sharks right wing Joel Ward, who skated for the University of Prince Edward Island after his Owen Sound career ended.

Like Ward, Lindo is a rugged power forward. But Lindo models his game after another Owen Sound alum, Philadelphia Flyers right wing Wayne Simmonds. Lindo even lived in the same billet residence that Simmonds did during his major junior days.

His season for Sarnia completed – he had 2 goals and 1 assist in 4 OHL playoff games for the Sting – Lindo played two exhibition games last week for the Jamaican national hockey team effort in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His family is of Jamaican descent.

His play in the exhibition games caught the eye of Bill Riley, a Nova Scotia resident who became the NHL’s third black player when he joined the Washington Capitals in 1976.

“He has all the tools,” Riley told me. “I had a real good chat with him after the game. I said to him, ‘Look, you have everything it takes to be a pro.’ I told him it’s 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. I said ‘if you’ve got the right mindset, don’t take no for an answer.”

Lindo appreciated the advice from Riley, who served as a Junior A hockey general manager and a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League head coach.

“He’s someone to reach out to and talk about hockey,” Lindo told me. “He knows the game, he’s been a pro, he knows what it takes. If I ever need that support, I have the ability to reach out and talk to him.”

For those who haven’t seen “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future,” the award-winning documentary by Damon Kwame Mason, catch it via iTunes, Amazon Video,  Google Play, Vudu, Microsoft Movies & TV,  or Sony PlayStation. It’s also available on Starz in the United States.

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Washington Capitals to salute Mike Marson, the NHL’s 2nd black player

24 Thursday Mar 2016

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When the Washington Capitals face the St. Louis Blues at the Verizon Center on Fan Appreciation Night Saturday, perhaps no one in the arena will be more appreciative than Mike Marson.

Mike Marson was drafted by the Washington Capitals at age 18 in 1974.

Mike Marson was drafted by the Washington Capitals at age 18 in 1974.

The Capitals are scheduled to honor Marson, who was the National Hockey League’s second black player, with a video salute on the Verizon Center’s giant scoreboard during a TV timeout.

“I’m very pleased that the Capitals made a move to invite me to come down,” Marson, a Toronto resident, told me recently. “It’s an honor and a pleasure.”

Marson and his Capitals teammates endured the indignity of an 8-67-5 record in the team’s inaugural 1974-75 season, one of the worst records in NHL history.

But Marson also endured the indignities of racism  – on and off the ice. Taunts and physical liberties by opposing players on the ice and racist letters delivered to his home and to the Capital Centre, the team’s original suburban Maryland home, were the unsettling norm.

“It was a culture shock,” Marson recalled.”Nobody should have to make a comment that you’re with the team to get on the plane; nobody should have to, when you get to the hotel, hear the staff ask the coach ‘is that gentleman with you?’ Or hear ‘we don’t have people like him stay at our hotel;’ and nobody should then have to go down in the morning for breakfast and have people usher by you non-stop because they won’t feed you. This is before you even get to the rink, before you have to deal with your opposition. It was non-stop.”

Marson’s story is chronicled in filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s black hockey history documentary, “Soul on Ice, Past, Present & Future,” which aired on NHL Network in February as part of Black History Month.

His professional hockey career was brief –  five seasons with the Capitals and three games with the Los Angeles Kings combined with stints with the American Hockey League’s Baltimore Clippers, Springfield Indians,  Binghamton Dusters and Hershey Bears.

The left wing tallied only 24 goals 24 assists in 196 NHL regular season games and never appeared in a Stanley Cup playoff game.

Still, Marson left an imprint on the game. It’s evident in Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban and New York Rangers forward Rick Nash, who, as youngsters climbing the hockey ladder, trained off-ice under Marson during his post-hockey career as a martial arts instructor.

“The main thing about Mike was he taught P.K. how to be mentally strong,” Karl Subban, P.K.’s father, told me recently. “If you look at P.K. today, that’s one of the traits he has as a hockey player. It doesn’t matter what’s happening off the ice, it doesn’t matter what’s written about him or what’s said about him. He’s going to go out and play. And I’ve got to give Mike Marson credit for that.”

The elder Subban also credits Marson for igniting his love for hockey – a passion that he passed onto P.K., middle son Malcolm, a goaltender for the AHL Providence Bruins, and youngest son Jordan, a defenseman for the AHL’s Utica Comets.

The son of Jamaican immigrants, Karl Subban grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where Marson played major junior hockey for the Sudbury Wolves, then of the Ontario Hockey Association.

Marson was the Man in Sudbury: a black skating, scoring, and fighting machine who wore the captain’s “C” on his jersey. He exuded unabashed blackness – sporting an Afro, Fu Manchu mustache and mutton chop sideburns.

Mike Marson, front row center, with the 1973-74 Sudbury Wolves (Photo/Courtesy Sudbury Wolves)

Mike Marson, front row center, with the 1973-74 Sudbury Wolves (Photo/Courtesy Sudbury Wolves).

“Mike Marson gave my community a reason to watch hockey,” Karl Subban told me. “I loved the Sudbury Wolves.But when Mike came onto the scene I took it to another level. They were not just the Sudbury Wolves, they were my team because they had a player who looked like me.”

Between 1972 and 1974 Marson tallied 40 goals, 87 assists and amassed a whopping 263 penalty minutes in 126 regular season games for the Wolves. His hockey resume was strong enough that the expansion Capitals grabbed him with the first pick in the second round of the 1974 NHL Draft.

“I was pretty quick,” said Marson, who works as a bus driver in Toronto.”Having attended so many training camps where I was the only person of color, I had to be able to handle myself. I liked to score, I wasn’t afraid of the rough stuff.”

He was chosen ahead of Hockey Hall of Famers Bryan Trottier, a center who scored 1,425 career points mainly for the New York Islanders, and Mark Howe, who tallied 742 career points as a defenseman playing primarily with the Philadelphia Flyers.

Mike Marson scored 16 goals in his rookie season with the Capitals in 1974-75. (Photo/Washington Capitals archives).

Mike Marson scored 16 goals in his rookie season with the Capitals in 1974-75. (Photo/Washington Capitals archives).

The Capitals believed they had a solid pick, so did other hockey people. Plus, it didn’t hurt to have a black player as a potential gate attraction in a new hockey city with a sizable black population.

Marson graced the cover of The Hockey News in October 1974. When he made his regular season debut with the Caps at age 19, he became the NHL’s second black player, the first since forward Willie O’Ree played his last game for the Boston Bruins in the 1960-61 season. O’Ree  first joined the Bruins in the 1957-58 season.

Marson showed promise in an otherwise dismal inaugural season for the Capitals. The rookie finished third on the team in scoring with 16 and 12 assists in 76 games.

“He was a great talent – a great skater, great puck skills, tough as they come. He was the complete package,” said right wing Bill Riley, who became the NHL’s third black player when he joined the Capitals for one game in 1974-75 and went on to become a sometimes line mate of Marson’s from 1976 to 1979. “He was strong. I only came across two guys with that kind of strength: Stan Jonathan and Mike Marson. When Mike hit you, you knew you got hit.”

There weren't many NHL players stronger than Mike Marson, according to former Capitals teammate Bill Riley, who was the league's third black player (Photo/Washington Capitals archives).

There weren’t many NHL players stronger than Mike Marson, according to former Capitals teammate Bill Riley, who was the league’s third black player (Photo/Washington Capitals archives).

Still, Riley, who went on to become Junior A hockey general manger and a head coach of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Moncton Wildcats in 1996-97, said “I was looking for bigger and better things for Mike.”

So was Marson. But being drafted at 18, becoming a $500,000 bonus baby, and going straight to the NHL without a proper apprenticeship in the minor leagues might have been too much too soon, he said.

And the culture shock of moving from Canada – where he considered himself a hockey player first – to an NHL city south of the U.S. Mason-Dixon line in the racially-tumultuous 1970s also took its toll.

“You can’t really compare my situation back in 1974 to today’s way of thinking,” he told me. “There’s no way to measure that by today’s uplifted society.”

But Marson says he doesn’t dwell on the painful past. Age brings perspective. And healing.

“You don’t get to be 60 and not have some regrets in your life – decisions you made here and there,” he told me. “You react differently than you did at 19 or 16. For me, it’s interesting to have put away all the negative things that transpired so many years ago – we’re talking over 40 years ago – when the world was a totally different place.”

 

 

 

 

On #OscarsSoWhite night, a movie highlights hockey’s diversity

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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On an evening when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will struggle with the lack of diversity among its Oscars nominees, the NHL Network will highlight hockey’s gradually growing diversity with an encore presentation of “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future.”

Damon Kwame Mason (right)interviewed hockey great Herb Carnegie before he passed away in March 2012.

Damon Kwame Mason (right)interviewed hockey great Herb Carnegie before he passed away in March 2012.

The cable network will air first-time filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason’s black hockey history documentary on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST. (Other time zones, check your local listings).

The network broadcast the film Wednesday night and NHLers from players such as Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Trevor Daley to Commissioner Gary Bettman and Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis have taken to the airwaves to promote the film.

“It’s a special thing for someone for someone to put a film out like this,” Daley told “NHL Live Powered by Constellation.”

Bryce Salvador –  a retired defenseman who played for the St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils – called the movie “so important.”

“When I was 7-8 years old, just seeing Grant Fuhr play during the heydays of the Oilers really opened my mind to what was possible for someone of color,” Salvador said. “When you see diversity, how it’s growing, ‘Hockey is for Everyone,’ and where it’s going, it’s phenomenal.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” makes U.S. premiere in D.C.

14 Thursday Jan 2016

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What a week in Washington!

President Barack Obama delivered his last State of the Union address Tuesday and the National Hockey League and the Washington Capitals hosted a screening Wednesday of a full-length documentary on the history and growing impact of blacks in ice hockey.

“Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” had its U.S. premiere before a near-capacity audience at Washington’s Landmark E Street Cinema with plenty of hockey star power on hand. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis and Capitals Head Coach Barry Trotz were in the house.

Willie O’Ree, the NHL’s first black player, former NHL goaltender/turned NHL Network analyst Kevin Weekes, former NHL forward and current MSG Networks and NBCSN hockey analyst Anson Carter were there for a post-screening question and answer session that I had the honor to moderate.

Left to right, Anson Carter, Kevin Weekes, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, hockey legend Willie O'Ree, filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason, and Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis at U.S. screening of Mason's "Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future."

Left to right, Anson Carter, Kevin Weekes, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, hockey legend Willie O’Ree, filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason, and Washington Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis at U.S. screening of Mason’s “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future.”

“It’s a story that needed to be told, but not many people even imagined it could exist,” Bettman  said of the documentary. “If you told somebody about this movie without actually seeing it, they’d think it was a work of fiction, like ‘how could it be because I’ve never heard of such a thing’ is what you get from most people.”

Canadian filmmaker Damon Kwame Mason was on hand to gauge a U.S. audience’s response to a film that he poured his heart, soul, and wallet into for the last four years. Mason was so committed to the project that the former disc jockey sold his condo to help fund it.

Mason hasn’t seen a paycheck in about three years, but he basked in a wealth of applause and appreciative remarks from the D.C. audience Wednesday night.

“The biggest thing that this screening means to me is all that hard work,  all those midnights worrying, all that stressing out, all that wondering what’s going to happen the next day, it made me feel like it was all worth it,” he told me. “For a guy who dreamed about doing a film, and being in a position like this, is remarkable.”

The film tells the little-told story of blacks in hockey from the Coloured Hockey League in the Canadian Maritimes in the 1800s to the exploits of forward Herb Carnegie – regarded as the best Canadian hockey player never to skate in the NHL – to O’Ree breaking in with the Boston Bruins, despite being blind in one eye.

While paying homage to the past, “Soul on Ice” examines the present by focusing on current stars like Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds, Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban, and Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Trevor Daley.

It gives a glimpse of the game’s future by following the path of Owen Sound Attack forward Jaden Lindo from his Ontario Hockey League junior team to the 2014 NHL Draft in Philadelphia. He was chosen by the Penguins in the sixth round of the draft with the 173rd overall pick.

Bettman and other NHL officials had seen the movie earlier, but Ken Martin, the league’s senior vice president of community and diversity programming, didn’t let O’Ree, who is the NHL’s director of youth development, get an early peek at Mason’s product.

Color of Hockey Editor William Douglas with The Bearded One - NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman at "Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future" screening in Washington, D.C.

Color of Hockey Editor William Douglas with The Bearded One – NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman at “Soul on Ice, Past, Present and Future” screening in Washington, D.C.

When O’Ree watched his legacy on the big screen, the hockey pioneer who joined the Bruins in 1958, became emotional.

“Unbelievable,” he told NHL.com. “Now I know why he didn’t want me to see it. It was breathtaking, really. I was thrilled when I saw it.”

Trotz, who coached forward Joel Ward when he was with the Capitals and Nashville Predators, said the documentary was an eye-opener.

“What I liked about it is it was three stories for me – it was a history of the game, Kwame’s story, and it was young Jaden’s story,” Trotz told NHL.com. “There are some things that I feel ignorant on being someone in the game and not knowing all the story. It’s quite enlightening.”

Mason said the hard work of making the movie is over but the hard work of trying to get the documentary before the general public is still ahead of him.

He’s hoping to work with the NHL in getting it televised nationally by the NHL’s broadcast partners, NBC in the U.S. and Sportsnet in Canada.

For more information about the documentary, visit www.soulonicemovie.com.

 

 

 

Will it be lights, camera – and finally – action for black hockey history movies?

04 Monday Nov 2013

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Hollywood and the Canadian film industry love turning sports stories into movies – especially fact-based, against all-odds, underdog-to-overachiever athletic tales.

“Remember the Titans” chronicled a Virginia high school football team overcoming racial barriers to become champions. “Pride” captured the story of the U.S.’s first all-black competitive swim team. “Crooked Arrows” spun the real-life-inspired tale of a Native American youth lacrosse team. Heck, even Disney couldn’t resist turning the story of the Jamaican Bobsled Olympic team into the comedy “Cool Runnings.”

But when it comes to making feature films or documentaries about the rise of blacks in ice hockey, it seems to be a challenge convincing the entertainment powers that be that it’s a worthwhile venture. That hasn’t stopped Kwame Damon Mason, Joe Doughrity and George Fosty from trying.

For years, the three men have separately been knocking on the doors of film and television industry-types on both sides of the border to get them interested in supporting, funding, and eventually airing their individual hockey film projects.

“It’s a tough sell,” Doughrity told me recently. “When I’ve had meetings at studios about it, they think it’s a great story but hockey is the fourth or fifth sport. It’s not the NFL, the NBA or Major League Baseball.”

Hockey documentary-maker Joe Doughrity.

Hockey documentary-maker Joe Doughrity.

It’s not like hockey is an unknown quantity to showbiz folks. The sport has starred or played a prominent role in many a film, from the 1970 tear-jerker “Love Story” to Paul Newman’s classic “Slap Shot” to director John Singleton’s “Four Brothers.”

Television and film producer Jerry Bruckheimer is a pick up hockey regular in L.A. And Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding, Jr., has been known to suit up for games. Still, getting a black hockey project green-lighted has been a slow slog.

Doughrity, a Detroit transplant who moved to Los Angeles to pursue a movie industry career, has been searching for backing to finish the documentary he started on the Detroit Rockies, an all-black Midget AA team that shocked the hockey world by winning a Can/Am tournament in Lake Placid in 1995. The young Detroiters outscored their U.S. and Canadian competition 35-8 on the way to capturing the title.

The Rockies’ story is compelling enough that Doughrity is working with Fox Television Studios on a pilot that uses the team as a springboard to explore the passion for the game and the resilience of the people of Detroit. He’s also working towards a feature film about the team.

“It’s been happening for a couple of years now,” Doughrity said of the television pilot. “On the feature film side, a pretty well-known producer named Mike Karz, he’s done a bunch of Adam Sandler films, he’s spearheading the feature film version. I can’t tell you anything definitively about a start date, who might be in it, because it’s all in its infancy.”

Still, the slow pace of the projects hasn’t diminished Doughrity’s excitement or drive to get the Detroit hockey story on the big or small screen.

“I love the story,” he said. “It will help make black kids feel comfortable playing the sport because they get it from both sides: they get it white kids who don’t think we play hockey, they get it from black kids who don’t think we play hockey. I want to make something cool about being black and playing hockey.”

Mason, a Toronto resident, recently launched an online fundraising drive on to support

Kwame Damon Mason interviewed hockey great Herb Carnegie, left, before he passed away in March 2012.

Kwame Damon Mason interviewed hockey great Herb Carnegie, left, before he passed away in March 2012.

his documentary: “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future.” For his project, Mason has interviewed some of the game’s black trailblazers, including the late Quebec Aces legend Herb Carnegie, who was regarded as one of the greatest hockey players never to reach the NHL; current players such as forward Joel Ward of the Washington Capitals; and follows the budding career of Jaden Lindo, a right wing for the Ontario Hockey League’s Owen Sound Attack. Lindo, 17, will be eligible for the 2014 National Hockey League draft this summer.

Mason hopes to have cameras rolling at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center  on June 27-28 to chronicle how Lindo fares at the draft. But until then, he’s out to raise $40,000 via the international crowd online fund-raising site Indiegogo to help keep film production going.

Mason has gone all-in on his project. He set aside his job in radio two-and-a-half years ago to devote all his time to conducting interviews, raising money, and trying to persuade entities like the Canadian Broadcasting Company to air the documentary when its hopefully finished by next September.

“I’m just being a starving artist right now and putting everything into the project,” he said. “It’s a perfect time for it, more blacks are coming into the league,” Mason said. “It’s not a new phenomenon with blacks playing in the NHL. But I think there needs to be this attention or understanding about the history of it because, as they say, you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’re coming from.”

Kwame Mason profiles Owen Sound's Jaden Lindo in his documentary.

Kwame Mason profiles Owen Sound’s Jaden Lindo in his documentary.

Fosty and his brother, Darril, are equally passionate when it comes to trying to generate studio and investor interest in expanding their documentary which is based on their 2004 ground-breaking book, “Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey Leagues of the Maritimes, 1895-1925.” 

The book and documentary trace the roots of modern hockey, from the slap shot to butterfly-style goaltending, to an all-black league comprised largely of runaway U.S. slaves who settled in the Canadian Maritimes.

“It’s not been easy at all,” George Fosty told me. “You walk in with a hockey history, and a black history on top of it, add a Canadian history element to it, that’s three strikes and you’re out of it already.  They’re going to say ‘Somebody in Iowa is not going to be interested in this.'”

But he and other filmmakers say that perception is slowly fading as movie and TV executives are taking note that the changing complexion of hockey reflects the changing racial and ethnic demographics of the United States and Canada. in other words, movie-goers and TV audiences are becoming browner.

Fosty says recent conversations that he’s had with Canadian television executives about the possibility of making “Black Ice” a made-for-TV movie make him feel encouraged that the tide may finally be changing for him, Doughrity, Mason and their projects.

“We’re rounding third and heading home,” Fosty said. “These films will be reality, they will be made. Now do you want to work with us or stay on the sidelines? That’s the big question in the meetings we have with industry people today.”

For more information on Joe Doughrity and his hockey film project, visit https://www.facebook.com/joedfilmmaker, follow him on Twitter @afropuck or email him joedoughrity@gmail.com. To Learn more about Kwame Damon Mason’s project, visit Indiegogo at http://igg.me/p/542885/x/4899078. For more on George Fosty’s “Black Ice” efforts, contact him at  gfosty@boxscorenews.com.