A grassroots effort is underway to get professional hockey's first Black coach, John Paris Jr., inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Hockey Nova Scotia launched a petition dubbed "Paris to Toronto" on Feb. 1, calling on the Nova Scotia-born Paris to be recognized by the Toronto-based hall for his contributions to the game.
Paris, a talented five-foot-five player, was scouted by Scotty Bowman to play junior hockey in Quebec in the early 1960s, with the future NHL head coach and general manager paying a visit to his family home in Windsor, N.S., to recruit him. His playing career was cut short by illness, but his coaching career began about 90 kilometres east of Montreal.
He said many of those first cohort of players and their families remain friends. "We're very tight still today, it's that region where I had my coaching start, and that's where it took off," he said. Paris says his most memorable achievement as a coach was guiding the Richelieu Riverains in 1987 to an Air Canada Cup championship , the official national under-18 boys hockey tournament.
He was also the first Black general manager in professional hockey, holding roles in the Quebec junior ranks and with the Macon Whoopee, a defunct Georgia-based team in the Central Hockey League. Smith said the more he learned about Paris, the more surprised he was that he wasn't already in the Hall of Fame."He loves to talk about hockey, he loves to convey his experience to young junior coaches like myself but he will never sell himself, and I think that is our job now — to make sure that his accolades and his accomplishments ... are recognized by the highest levels of hockey.
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