Halifax coach named Hockey Canada’s community champion

A long-time member of the minor hockey community and a passionate advocate for diversifying the game at the youth level here in Nova Scotia, lawyer Dean Smith has been recognized by Hockey Canada as February’s community champion. 

“If I can open up this game of hockey to more diverse individuals, that’s what drives me,” Smith says. “If I can put half a dozen new sets of skates on the ice, attached to diverse players, I will do this every day I can.”

For more than a decade, Smith has been involved with the Black Youth Ice Hockey Initiative (a program under the umbrella of the Black Ice Hockey and Sports Hall of Fame) — first as an instructor, when he joined in 2008, and eventually rising through the ranks to be named the chair of the Hockey Nova Scotia Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, and now serving as the diversity and inclusion chair on Hockey Nova Scotia’s board of directors.

“When I think of Dean, and the importance of Dean in the hockey community, I’m a big believer in visibility,” said Amy Walsh, executive director of Hockey Nova Scotia, in a video accompanying the announcement. “Dean leads in the boardroom, leads behind the bench, and leads even in the courtroom. That really matters.” 

For Smith, the work of diversity and inclusion starts at the dressing room level.

“Kids absolutely get it,” Smith says. “We’re not fooling anyone at all. Kids know what’s happening. They’re sensitive to discrimination.”

As a coach on his two boys’ hockey teams, Smith starts every year with a discussion about what does and does not fly in his dressing rooms; he has this discussion again during the year, to refresh and to remind that the task of diversity is not a one-time thing. 

Smith has spoken about the challenges he faced as a Black hockey player growing up.

“I remember a bunch of white gentlemen making comments to me as I went by with my duffel bag full of gear, saying ‘you guys aren’t supposed to be playing hockey,’” Smith said in an interview with Hockey Canada last April. “I remember how it really dissuaded me from continuing in hockey. It’s a lesson that I held dear in my heart all these years.”

While Smith has been active in helping to reintroduce the game to minority communities, his ambition is to go beyond that — to see diversity in youth sports trickle upwards into minor hockey leagues and competitive teams.

“What I would really like to see over the next couple of years is to solve that question: how do we transition from these pilot programs (like the Black Youth Ice Hockey Initiative)? How do we capitalize on that and increase these numbers in the game of minor hockey?” he stated.

“Once you start playing this game, you fall in love with the game. The issue is how do we make the game more welcoming. That’s the million dollar question we need to solve.”

It isn’t just a matter of resources, of making hockey cheaper to access. The barriers are not all material. 

“Many people often point to the cost of hockey” as being prohibitive for racialized hockey players. “But I always respond by saying if it was only costs, we could have solved this a long time ago,” Smith says. It is the culture that needs to be addressed — the words exchanged in dressing rooms, the slurs hurled all too frequently on the ice. “I have always held the view that there are very few infractions in the sport that force people to leave. Racism and discrimination does.” 

“His legacy will be about inclusion,” said Walsh. “I think I’ve seen that first-hand, as he chairs meetings and as he interacts with his players. … But I think his most important work is yet to come.”