{"id":149990,"date":"2025-08-06T03:19:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/149990\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T03:19:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:19:31","slug":"hockey-is-for-me-introduces-sport-to-children-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/149990\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hockey Is For Me\u2019 introduces sport to children of color"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – Minnesota may be the state of hockey<\/a>, but not everyone here participates in the popular sport.<\/p>\n

My favorite part is scoring <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Amir Kadir is about to start kindergarten in the fall, but he’s already following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, by learning the ABCs of hockey.<\/p>\n

“He’s done sitting there watching his older brother play. He’s ready to be on the ice,” said Amir’s mother, Ramla Ibraham.<\/p>\n

Welcoming ice <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

Amir is one of more than 50 total kids ages 5 to 8 who are part of the Minnesota Wild<\/a>‘s Hockey Is For Me program at the team’s practice facility, Tria Rink in downtown St. Paul.<\/p>\n

The four weekly sessions are designed to introduce the sport to children of color who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to get out on the ice.<\/p>\n

“As most people know, hockey is primarily a white sport, and we’re doing anything we can to even move the needle a little bit,” said Gabby Billing, the Minnesota Wild’s Hockey Partnerships Manager.<\/p>\n

In fact, according to Minnesota Hockey, 86% of children 8 and under who are involved in hockey in the state are white.<\/p>\n

So, Hockey Is For Me provides ice time and equipment to grow the sport in diverse communities, all free of charge.<\/p>\n

“Everybody knows hockey is an expensive sport, so that’s naturally a barrier in itself. But also a lot of these kids just didn’t grow up around it or have maybe never even seen the inside of a hockey rink before,” said Billing.<\/p>\n

Amazing opportunity <\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

Growing up in Ethiopia, Amir’s mother wasn’t familiar with hockey before moving to Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Now she can’t imagine her childrens’ lives without it.<\/p>\n

“It’s a great opportunity that they’re opening the door for a lot of kids of color who are ready to play the sport, and we do appreciate whoever created this program,” Ibraham said.<\/p>\n

If any of the young skaters want to continue with hockey, the Wild will connect them with a youth hockey association in their area and even give them a grant up to $250 to help cover any first year fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minnesota<\/a>Sports<\/a>People<\/a>Minnesota Wild<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – Minnesota may be the state of hockey, but not everyone here participates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,6075,40,4,5676,43,1321,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-149990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mn","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-people","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114979665579240481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}