White men can't jump? Black men can't skate?: Ethnic excuses for athletic ability

Three hours before the beginning of game seven of the Stanley Cup, I paced around the set of "Warrior" nervous about whether the director would wrap the scene before the puck dropped - I committed to being an extra before I realized that the series would go on for seven games.

It seemed like everyone was eager to get out; the crew moved the start time from 8:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. and dozens of crew members wore their Penguins gear. Some even had the moxie to wear Detroit Red Wings jerseys around Pittsburgh's North Hills Senior High School, where some of the movie's classroom scenes were shot.
While I was standing in a hallway waiting to enter the classroom, I heard a girl laughing and telling people why she couldn't like hockey.

"I don't follow the Penguins. Sure, I smile when they win, but I don't watch hockey. I'm black, and black people don't watch hockey. They just don't. My race doesn't let me watch hockey," she said.

I had to jump in. I told her that there are fewer Asians in the National Hockey League than black people, but my ethnicity doesn't keep me from watching hockey or football. Her excuse was just a cop out.

She tried to tell me off saying that the black people in the NHL were Canadians and not Americans so they aren't "black." That argument got tired out during Barack Obama's run for president. She couldn't name a black player in the league and yet she knew that their families didn't go through the struggle.

Well they are going through a struggle. They're overcoming stereotypes of their race. Perhaps their parents pushed them to pick up footballs, basketballs or at least baseballs, but they were happier with hockey sticks in their hands.

Mike Grier had a stint with youth football, but he soon realized that he was in the wrong sport. He became the first African-American to play in the NHL when he joined the Edmonton Oilers in 1996, with the support of his parents. However, growing up in "Hockeytown, USA" might have helped.

Willie O'Ree became the first man of African descent to play in the NHL in 1958, but he's Canadian.

**I have to put a plug in for the charitable, vegetarian, anti-fur, hockey-fight-extraordinaire Georges Laraque, who hails from Montreal but is of Haitian descent. I have to say that is seems like his Web site got an Obama-style makeover. You've got to love the blue gradient.

I told the girl that most hockey stars are not American, whether black, white, yellow or brown. The Canadian Ray Emery, Russian Evgeni Malkin, Canadian Manny Fernandez and the first player of Asian descent to captain a team in the NHL, Paul Kariya, who was born in Canada, have many things in common. But there's one glaring similarity: they weren't raised in the United States.

**Don't mind if I put in another plug. Paul Kariya had a cameo in D3: The Mighty Ducks, which is all about a diverse group of youngsters who outplay the contentious and preppy varsity team that believes ducks don't belong. Plus, his Japanese father played rugby, and his mother is Scottish. The Kariyas broke boundaries left and right.

Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya

If anything, the girl could have partially blamed her lack of interest in hockey on the country's and networks' lack of support since the lockout, pushing games on to more obscure networks and giving Conan O'Brien preference over the Stanley Cup finals.

But anyone who has interest in any sport, despite his or her color or culture can find a way to follow it, even if it's not on cable television.

The same goes for playing the sport. Physical superiority only goes so far; the only thing that can stop an athlete from playing the game is his or her mind.

To the nonbelievers, I have this video for you.