For 30 years, there was a hockey league for Black players in the Canadian Maritimes that offered a level of speed and skill not found in other hockey leagues of the day, and which would inspire widespread changes in how the game was played. But the league and the players would never get the credit they deserved for it.
Established in 1895 in Halifax, the Colored Hockey League (CHL) was founded by four Black community and Baptist church leaders and lasted over 30 years. With a basis in religious faith, community, and athletic excellence, the CHL was—and was always intended to be—about much more than hockey. Its playbook was the Bible, which the founders insisted should inspire the players’ conduct on and off the ice.
The league’s organizers believed hockey should also support goal setting and striving for excellence among the players. Playing in the CHL also served as an important means of networking, to use a modern word, for young African Nova Scotian men.
Ironically, one of the contributors to the demise of the league in the mid-1920s was the exceptional participation by Black men in World War I.
This interesting and well-researched book describes an important chapter in Canadian sports and African Nova Scotian history that deserves wider recognition.