***Revised: A previous version of this newsletter was delivered earlier today that was missing the bio of Ken Gelman under the Q&A feature.*** | |
|
It has been fulfilling to see that the work of The CI team is making a difference. It is especially pleasing to hear kind words from others about how we are a leader in our space and pushing the needle on changing the culture of hockey.
This game is so special and has always meant so much to my family and me. That’s because what happens on the ice is only part of the aura of hockey. There is so much more to it. Hockey is a way of life especially in Canada where it is uniquely intertwined into the country’s culture.
Yet, for many in underrepresented or marginalized communities across North America, access to the sport is difficult. That’s why we do what we do at The CI.
While we’ve experienced success in the infancy of our organization, I feel we are currently poised for great growth in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Leading this charge is our Executive Director Shelley Nicholls and our Chief Commercial Officer Ken Gelman. Shelley is new to us and you heard from her in our last “Carnegie Corner.” Ken, on the other hand, has been with us since the start. Be sure to see his Q&A below for his perspective on our trajectory.
We forge ahead and welcome the responsibility that accompanies being a trusted leader in the work taking place at the intersection of hockey and social justice. We continue to provide useful tools and resources through our Summits, grants, and this newsletter. We also just launched “The CI Aggregator” on our website. We think it is already a “must see” for anyone working in the hockey and DEI worlds.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you. Please reach out with comments, suggestions in addition to any other helpful or inspiring submissions. Email us at info@carnegieinitiative.com.
Warm Regards,
| |
|
Bernice Carnegie
Co-Chair
| | |
|
The CI Aggregator Launches
A new feature on our website, "The CI Aggregator," launched earlier this month. It serves as a valuable resource for anyone working or interested in the hockey and social justice space.
Our communications team is constantly curating information and stories related to our work. While the content is hockey centric, it also includes other stories related to efforts to make the world a more accepting, welcoming and inclusive place.
A new “CI Aggregator” is published each Friday afternoon. It presents an in-depth look at news from the previous week. It’s laid out in a format that makes it easy to scan headlines and read brief summaries. Each story is linked to the original source to access the full piece.
We encourage anyone in our community to submit news to be considered for the “CI Aggregator” by emailing us at info@carnegieinitiative.com
|  |
|
“Little NHL” to be held in Markham, Ontario, in 2024
The Little Native Hockey League (Little NHL) announced this week that their tournament, gala and cultural celebration will be held in Markham, Ontario, next March.
The 2024 gathering of First Nation hockey players, families and friends will mark the 50th Anniversary of The Little NHL. Approximately 3,500 youth male and female hockey players from Ontario participate each year. Last year’s tournament was held in Mississauga, following a three-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The event had been held in Mississauga since 2013.
The Little NHL is one of the hockey world’s most special events, serving as an annual spring gathering of the First Nation hockey community. It focuses on the spirit of hockey, community, and the Little NHL’s four pillars: citizenship, education, respect and sportsmanship.
The first Little NHL Tournament, Gala and Cultural Celebration was organized in 1971 by Earl Abotossaway, former Chief Jim McGregor, the late James D. Debassige, the late Reverend Leonard Self and the late Norman Debassige.
Marian Jacko, who spoke at the 2023 Carnegie Summit on social justice in hockey, shared survey data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic which showed that 94% of players said participating in the Little NHL made them feel “proud to be First Nation.”
Jacko served as the President of the Little NHL from 2018 to 2023, before she stepped down to become a member of Hockey Canada’s Board of Directors. Patrick Wedaseh Madahbee is the current Little NHL President.
A video of Jacko speaking at The Carnegie Initiative Summit 2023 appears below.
|  |
|
NHL Legend Reggie Leach Named to Hockey Indigenous Board
Hockey Indigenous named Reggie Leach as the first member of its Board of Directors in July. The move is a significant step for Hockey Indigenous, founded by Stephane Friday and Abigail Linklater in 2016 as an online platform to share information about Indigenous players in the hockey world. Friday was a 2023 Herbert Carnegie Trailblazer Award (HCTA) winner.
Sam Laskaris of Anishinabek News praised Friday and Linklater, saying, “the pair have always aimed to use their online voices to empower Indigenous youth” and added that Leach will certainly be a strong addition to that effort.
Leach, 73, was raised in Riverton, Manitoba, and became known as the “Riverton Rifle.” He is best known for his playing days with the Philadelphia Flyers, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 1974-75. The following season, Leach led the NHL in goals with 61 to set a Flyers record.
He is a member of Berens River First Nation in Manitoba, and currently lives in Aundeck Omni Kaning First Nation on Manitoulin Island.
|  | The CI Board Member Ted Nolan with Abigail Linklater and Stephane Friday of Hockey Indigenous at the 2023 HCTA Ceremony held at the Hockey Hall of Fame. |
|
Ken Gelman is the Chief Commercial Officer for The Carnegie Initiative (The CI). He has more than 25 years of experience of providing leadership and direction for several premier sports and entertainment properties and emerging brands. Prior to joining The CI, Ken was most recently the Chief Operating Officer of live-event fight sports entity KASAI Elite Grappling based in New York City. Ken also founded G-Funk Sports & Entertainment in 2006 that focused on business and content development, distribution drives, digital marketing solutions and partnership marketing for sports and entertainment brands.
Ken also held executive positions with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the National Hockey League (NHL). He is well-known as one of the initial creators of NHL Center Ice and has been instrumental in launching a broad array of pioneering sports video subscription products and highly adoptive end-user offerings.
| |
CI: What attracted you to joining The Carnegie Initiative? And, since you’ve been here since the beginning, what do you believe is the greatest accomplishment of The CI to date?
KG: Many years ago, I was fortunate to attend an event in New York City where Herb Carnegie was the guest speaker. Herb’s impassioned words left a lasting impression. The person that extended the invite was my colleague at the National Hockey League at the time, Bryant McBride. Fast forward a couple of decades and for the second time, I accepted Bryant’s invitation. He, along with Bernice Carnegie, asked me to join The Carnegie Initiative as Chief Commercial Officer.
It’s been a magical ride over the past (almost) three years since the idea was conceived and a little more than two years since The CI officially launched. In that time, we have achieved a great many things -- from hosting groundbreaking gatherings like our two CI Summits in Boston and Toronto, to awarding academic grants to further academic research, to developing programming and events ranging from our Herbert Carnegie Trailblazer Awards program to a first-of-its-kind Disability Skills Competition celebrating the on-ice talents of persons with disabilities. Recently, The CI even helped produce an incredible documentary film, “Beyond Their Years – The Incredible Legacies of Herb Carnegie and Buck O’Neil.”
The accomplishments are many, but what I believe to be our greatest accomplishment as an organization has been our ability to bring people together across the hockey world. We have a mantra that “connectivity and collaboration” is vital to the growth of our sport and the work we have executed reflects that. This work is only made possible by our incredible partners and those individual partnerships is something I am most proud of. Allyship means everything.
CI: How has your experience with The CI differed from your other roles in sports throughout your career?
KG: I have been very fortunate throughout my more than 25 years in the sports and entertainment industry to work for and with some of the biggest and most progressive brands and organizations in the business, ranging from the National Hockey League to emerging startups. This is the very first time however I find myself working in the non-profit sector. It has been an adjustment for me in many ways and the personal rewards have been immense. My work with The CI has been some of the most rewarding work of my entire career. Just knowing the work we are doing every single day directly impacts people in need and supports and provides opportunity for marginalized groups and individuals that would not otherwise have a “voice” within or access to our sport is incredibly fulfilling. And the best part of the story is we’ve only just left the starting blocks on what we expect will be a long and exciting journey.
|  | Ken posed with Washington Capitals goalie Olaf Kölzig during a DirecTV commercial shoot in 2001. | |
CI: Was there a particular instance in your life you recall as the moment you fell in love with hockey?
KG: Hockey has been a constant throughout my life, from my youngest days. Watching The "Miracle On Ice" team on television as a kid instantly hooked me as a fan. From there, growing up a New York Islanders fan during their dynasty years and playing street and ice hockey with my friends as a teen secured my fandom and love of the sport. The fact that I got to help shape the business side of the sport early in my career at the NHL was an incredible honor and one that bonded me a “hockey guy” and ultimately led to my appointment with The CI.
CI: What do you feel are some of the most important lessons from hockey that can be applied to life?
KG: Succeeding in any sport is all about teamwork and sharing a belief and a common goal with your teammates. It also takes everyone on the roster all the way up and down the line for the team to become a success. We live that firsthand at The Carnegie Initiative. One of the reasons The CI has ascended is we have a very dedicated team that works together to achieve our goals. Some of our best ideas have come from managers and interns and we encourage everyone to provide independent and diverse opinions and ideas, no matter where they may sit on the org. chart. Championships are won and lost well before you set foot on the ice or field of play and The CI applies these important lessons to our work every day.
CI: What do you deem as the most immediate challenges The CI must focus on to see more progress in making the sport more inclusive and welcoming to all?
KG: You can never have enough support to feed your mission and to that end, The CI needs more allies and partners that believe in our mission to join us. The CI has been fortunate to have such a strong Board of Directors and the benefit of an unparalleled personal network of contacts at every level of the sport. These relationships have greatly helped us establish ourselves as a leader in our field, but the work does not stop there. Our partners have been instrumental to our growth to date, and they have come from many sectors: corporate, governing bodies, educational institutions, individual donors, and more. We must continue to align ourselves with likeminded partners that want to accelerate the sport’s growth by creating more diverse spaces and opportunities. As the NHL’s Kim Davis likes to say, we are part of a “movement, not a moment” and we must do everything to advance that movement here at The CI.
|
|
“Far Larger than a Hockey Competition”
Marian Jacko, Hockey Canada Board Member and then Little Native Hockey League (The Little NHL) President, presented the results of a survey regarding The Little NHL and a powerful quote about the tournament’s impact in the Indigenous community. Here is an excerpt of her comments made at The CI Summit 2023 in Toronto.
Watch Video:
| Jacko served on a panel for the “Catalyst Conversation: Women in Hockey” at The CI Summit. See the full conversation moderated by Shireen Ahmed, CBC Sports Senior Contributor that included Jacko; Zarmina Nekzai, The Hockey Girls of Kabul Founder; Dr. Courtney Szto, Queen’s University Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology; and Kendall Boyd-Tyson, Seattle Kraken Senior Vice President Finance and Business Intelligence. | Watch |
|
By the Numbers
USA Hockey, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the National Governing Body for ice hockey in the United States. Aside from focusing on the youth game, the organization has thriving junior and adult programs for all ability levels. USA Hockey also supports a growing disabled hockey program.
|
|
Calendar
January 2024 - The CI Summit in Toronto, Ontario.
|
|
Help Blaze the Trail
The CI gratefully appreciates donations, large and small, that help us with our mission: “Work to ensure that hockey is inclusive, supportive, and welcoming to all.”
Please consider a donation today.
|
Kim Davis is the Senior Executive Vice President of Social Impact, Growth Initiatives & Legislative Affairs at the National Hockey League. She shared these words at The CI Summit in Toronto earlier this year. |
| | | |
