how come african american dominate most of the sport except hockey?

Question

why is it that they excell in all the other sports but when you watch hockey theres rarely any?

Answer 1

Hockey is an expensive sport...The ice time costs money, the equipment to play is expensive, etc.

Basketball: a ball and a hoop.
Baseball: a ball, a glove and a bat
Football: Although there's a lot of sorta expensive pads you can still train with just a ball.

Same reason with tennis...Also an expensive sport.

Answer 2

It is a simple answer: there are more avenues of economic opportunity to play other sports than hockey. While Canadians (and Swedes, Russians, Finns, and Czechs) are born into the sport, American blacks are born into football, basketball, and to an extent, baseball. If they are excellent, the opportunities are there to hone their skills via college, AAU, and semi-pro leagues. There are more players who have played hockey longer that get first priority to play as opposed to an American black. It has nothing to do with genetics (a dumba$$ answer, of course). It has nothing to to with economics (in some cases, yes, but for the sake of arguement, not in this example). It has a lot to do with opportunity. Besides, an American black has the chance to make more money playing basketball or football (or baseball) than hockey. The US sports scene is more heavily centered around those two or three sports than hockey. How often do you see college or junior hockey on television? College football, basketball, and baseball are seen more often. Hell, Little League baseball is more visible than mite hockey. Being a black man, I love and have played hockey. However, if I wanted to make more money and garner more exposure, I needed to be a better football or basketball player. Ultimately, the sport one is good at will open doors to get into college, and either way, allot more success. Hockey just doesn't offer that key for the American black. While there are exceptions to the "rule" (Willie O'Ree, Jarome Iginla, Grant Fuhr, Kevin Weekes, Anson Carter, Mike Grier, Ray Emery, Georges Laracque among others), only Mike Grier is an African-American. When the day comes that an African-American man dominates the NHL the way Tiger Woods dominates golf, the way the Williams sisters and Arthur Ashe dominated tennis, the way Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell dominated a lilly-white NBA, the way Jackie Robinson dominated MLB, the brothers (and sisters) will come.

Answer 3

My answer for this will have to be....

First, I don't think that African Americans "dominate" Base Ball.

Second, football and basket ball are offered at almost every middle and high school in America. Hockey and baseball aren't.

I am not sure why it's African Americans that dominate these sports but without trying to sound racist maybe they think it's the easiest way to make money. Get really good at football or basketball then get a free ride through college or even better signed by a pro team.

Answer 4

Actually there was an old SNL skit with Chris Rock as Nat X giving the five reasons why. Here is the quote from the skit:

Alright now, it's time for the Top 5. Why 5? 'Cause 10 would make the Man nervous. Tonight's the Top 5 Reasons Brothers don't play hockey.
Reason #5: It's cold out there;
Reason #4: They scared to get their gold tooth knocked out; Reason #3: Don't want to be around white guys with sticks; Reason #2: Don't want to be around a white guy with a mask; and the #1 Reason Black Guys Don't Play Hockey: Don't feel the need to dominate yet another sport.
And that's the Top 5 - that's all I could get from Whitey at this time.

Answer 5

I would say lots of these answers have a part in it. I use to have similar theories but have been sold on a new answer.

It is simple demographics on where hockey is popular. Simply Americans don't dominate hockey period, so neither do African Americans. It isn't popular, it's expensive, and their aren't the facilities. Canada still produces over half of NHL players. Then about 17% from the US, and 5 to 7% each from Czech, Sweden, Russia, and Finland. So that is 70% come from Countries that don't have a big black population. It's more than that, we just don't need to continue down the list.

Coming from Canada, I think Canadian blacks in the NHL is a higher percentage than their overall population in Canada. Canada is about 0.5% Black, and there are more than a couple of Canadian Black players. Weeks, Emery, Carter, Iginla. There that is already double their percentage of the Canadian population just off the top of my head.

So the question is why aren't they from the US? The number should be about 25 to 30 given US demographics.

Answer 6

I think one main reason is because hockey is the main sport of Canada, and a small portion or northern America somewhere near Canada, and no offense , but the main race in those places is white (Caucasian). Now with the whole racial thing going on with the gangs, they say they don't want to be seen with the "white" people. Now these gangs aren't rich, so even if they wanted they probably wouldn't be able to play. They influence many other African Americans to be the same way. If you do happen to see an African
American person playing hockey, 99.9% they won't be ghetto or even like it. But just wait and you will see more black players.

Answer 7

The NHL has far more European players than any other major team sport in the US. Demographically, Europe has less people of African descent than the United States. Canada also produces a very large number of NHLers, and has a relatively low African Canadian population.

There may also be socioeconomic factors involved. In the United States, most hockey players come from Middle and Upper Middle Class families who can afford the necessary equipment and live in communities with ice rinks.

Answer 8

Many of the very best Hockey players dont' come from the states. The NHL is dominated by Canadian and European men. There simply is less African or Black Descendents in those countries. Football, Basketball, and so is dominated by the United States so there is more opportunity for it to be more diverse. There is some good black players though. Like Mike Grier on the San Jose Sharks. Excellent defensemen!

Go Sharks!

Answer 9

I'm actually suprised they aren't more East Indian guys dominating hockey. In Canada, we have a lot more East Indians than Africian Americans and they are good at hockey, especially at street hockey. It amazes me that there are none in the NHL yet.

And African Americans haven't dominated F1 racing yet.

Answer 10

For cultural and economic reasons, areas with large populations of black people don't have much youth hockey. It's expensive, it takes special facilities that don't exist in low-income neigborhoods and a lot of specialized equipment for every player. I think there are a few more black kids coming up through the levels every year, but they may never get fully represented in the NHL.

On the other hand, basketball is very easy to play as a poor kid, all it takes is one ball among a whole group, and a court with a hoop somewhere (which are all over). Football takes equipment and facilities, but almost every public high school in America has them.

Baseball is seeing a big dropoff in the number of black players at the MLB level, as more young black athletes are focusing on basketball and football.

Answer 11

In just about all professional sports, there's a moderate risk of injury, except in hockey, where getting hurt is much more a part of the game. In most other pro sports, fighting is more of the exception than the rule that it seems to be in hockey. Of course there's always going to be exceptions like Ron Artest or whoever that douchebag was that stomped on the guys face in the NFL, I don't remember his name. But for the most part, if a two baseball teams get in a fight with each other, it'll be on the news. If two hockey teams get in a fight with each other, that just means you had a hockey game. Maybe black people are just smart enough to realize that white people are crazy for wanting to play a sport where there's a good chance of someone trying to knock your teeth out with a stick. That's my take on it.