When Saroya Tinker began considering where the Women of Colour Hockey Collective should hold its first international clinic to promote the sport and distribute free equipment, one destination stood out: Jamaica.
Here was an opportunity to give back for the Canadian-born Tinker and many of her WCHC members who have ancestral ties to the Caribbean nation. They did so by holding a three-day series of clinics that attracted about 150 Jamaican girls and boys in the nation’s capital of Kingston last weekend.
“A lot of gratitude. I mean very emotional,” Tinker said on Friday. “Just looking back and realizing that we got to impact a lot of our roots, and giving back to our community and introducing a game that we love, and we hope they’ll love as much as we do.”
Tinker is a former pro hockey player who has turned to broadcasting, and helped co-found what was then called the Black Girl Hockey Club Canada, and rebranded to the WCHC last year. The collective’s objective is making hockey more accessible to women and girls of color, and backed by the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
After holding clinics and offering programs in Canada, the WCHC decided to broaden its reach especially after hosting three girls from Kenya a year ago. The collective members include women of color playing at the collegiate and pro levels, with 15 making the trip to Jamaica, including Canadian national team and PWHL Vancouver defender Sophie Jaques,
“I think getting kids involved in any sport is great for them,” said Jaques, whose father is Jamaican. “Showing them that people of their heritage are very successful in the sport, and there’s opportunities for them in the sport I think is a great lesson."
In choosing Jamaica, the WCHC also brought on board Swift Hockey, a Canadian company that specializes in manufacturing and selling hockey sticks at more affordable prices. Swift was founded by Zechariah Thomas, a former minor leaguer who also played for the Jamaican national ice hockey team.
“Accessibility is something I speak on very publicly within hockey, where I felt a lot of people around me didn’t have accessibility,” said Thomas, who is from Oshawa, Ontario, and has Jamaican parents.
“A lot of kids I went to school with are now in jail or in prison or dead. And it’s such a big factor in my story noticing that none of them had sports,” he added. “So anything to make sports more accessible is super important.”
A majority of the Jamaican participants were new to hockey and included foster children.
“It was definitely very much grassroots learn to play, getting sticks in hands, teaching them how to stick handle,” Tinker said. “And then by the end of it they were running with the ball and stick-handling and shooting. So I think it was great.”
The WCHC left behind 75 sticks, goalie equipment, balls and T-shirts, while returning home with plenty of fond memories.
“As much as we teach the kids, there’s so much to learn from them,” Jaques said. “Their futures are so bright. And it’s just kind of opening their eyes to the fact that anything they want to do is possible.”
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