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17 Photos / Minnesota Wild/Bruce Kluckholn, Manitoba Moose F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 | M H J ON L I N E . C O M Strides yet to be made While Suess and Brown admit their positive experiences might be anomalies compared to other players, it shows that the game has moved in the right direction to truly make hockey a sport for everyone. The NHL teamed up with USA Hockey, Hockey Canada, You Can Play and Rise in 1998 to begin the Hockey is For Everyone campaign. It's trickled down to grassroots programs with NHL cities aiding inner city programs. Even without NHL backings, pro - grams like Minneapolis' DinoMights expos- es the sport to inner city youth at no cost, not only to teach the game of hockey, but the important life lessons that go along with it. In Minnesota, the easy access to ice, low costs and the community-based model gives most players a leg up in accessibility as well. Still, growth needs to be made. There are only 26 active black players in the NHL and according to QuantHockey.com, 97 percent of the NHL remains white. It took until 2018 for Team USA to have an African American represented on the Olympic squad ( Wild forward Jordan Greenway who said the honor was "cool" but "I just see myself as a hockey player, not a black hockey player.") Presently USA Hockey and Minnesota Hockey do not track a player's ethnicity, but a USA Hockey representative said they collected that specific data for the first time this season to evaluate for future use. Ultimately, diversity as a whole in the sport remains minimal. "While the community-based model is the most accessible model of hockey for people of all backgrounds, when it comes to diversity, we have a lot of work ahead of us," said Minnesota Hockey executive direc - tor Glen Andresen. "It's encouraging to see more ethnicities in hockey, but it's still not enough. We need to really take a hard look at new ideas aimed at getting these families into hockey and making it an environment where they feel welcome and part of the hockey community. "That will involve sitting down with fami - lies to find out what made them want to try hockey, and also to families who didn't try it, and how can we change that? This must be something we constantly work on." Suess said he recognizes the efforts being made by the sport's governing bodies. It gives him hope for the future of the game, and the future of players of all races to be included. "The more people you get into the game, the better it is," he said. "The more anybody can feel comfortable coming into the envi - ronment of the hockey culture, the more players we will get. It will invite more play- ers in the future in, and I truly think that the race thing will soon become a thing of the past as long as we keep moving forward and making the efforts moving forward." I was just playing the game I loved. It didn't matter what color my skin . When you're on the ice it's about playing hockey. That's how it should be." – Minnesota Wild forward J.T. Brown Black Minnesotans playing at the next level J.T. Brown, Minnesota Wild (Rosemount) Dustin Byfuglien*, Winnipeg Jets (Roseau) Kyle Okposo, Buffalo Sabres (St. Paul) C.J. Suess, Manitoba Moose (Forest Lake) K'Andre Miller*, University of Wisconsin (Minnetonka) Micah Miller, St. Cloud State University (Grand Rapids) *Byfuglien was the first American- born black player to win a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2009-10 *Miller was drafted 22nd overall by the New York Rangers in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft NEXT LEVEL PLAY J.T. Brown (UMD) and C.J. Suess (MSU) were two of the top players in the nation during their college careers.