CINCINNATI, OH — Scars on the glass make the focus less clear.
“Basically you can do whatever you want out here, you know? Take your anger out a little bit,” said Cincinnati Cyclones defenseman Jalen Smereck.
Hits are hard. Pucks are flying. Skaters are fast.
“You get out here and you forget about everything,” Smereck said.
But when reminded, it’s clear. The game slows down.
“My life changed,” Smereck said.
Last year, Smereck, who is a Black man, was playing professional hockey in Ukraine. In one game, there was a scrappy moment on the ice.
“I was just trying to stick up for my teammates as teammates do ... as I kind of turned my head and looked away, (opposing player Andrei Deniskin) gave a racial gesture,” Smereck said. “I was kind of confused. …The next 30 minutes every social media platform was going off, this thing was a lot bigger than I thought it was.”
Deniskin mimed peeling a banana. The incident garnered international attention and caught the eye of Cincinnati Cyclones head coach Jason Payne, who is also Black.
“I phoned him right away, and he was very upset,” Payne said.
“There was a span of a week or so where I was just kind of in a rough spot,” Smereck said.
Smereck was in a rough spot with a decision to make after Deniskin was initially suspended for only three games.
"I’m going to show that I’m better than you and I am going to rise above this,” Smereck said.
From a young age, Black hockey players are forced to deal with adversity.
“At school ... I was like 'the white boy' because I played hockey,” Smereck said. “When I was at hockey, I was 'the Black kid' on the team full of white kids.”
That struggle is not unique to Smereck. It creates a special bond that only Black hockey players understand. Less than one month ago, a Michigan State hockey player said an opponent at Ohio State hurled a racial slur at him "multiple times" during a game. Jagger Joshua said he spoke out about it after neither the Big Ten nor Ohio State disciplined the player.
“We just know,” Cyclones veteran defenseman Dajon Mingo said.
“There’s a huge connection,” Smereck said.
That connection brought Mingo and Smereck together.
“When I was in Jacksonville and he was on Norfolk Admirals, we would look at each other and say what’s up,” Mingo said.
“Especially when you want to play against each other, you still want to stick together. You're still kind of united,” Smereck said.
When Mingo saw what happened to Smereck in Ukraine, he had only one thing to say.
“The first thing I said was come to Cincy,” Mingo said.
“If there was a place where I came back to this league and to North America, this is where I wanted to be,” Smereck said.
Payne said he was ready to bring Smereck in immediately. Now a Cyclone, Smereck is with teammates and a coach who understand what he's going trough.
“It’s probably been the best year of my hockey career myself, just being fortunate enough to play with two African-Americans and have an African-American coach is just unreal," Smereck said.
“You get the struggle because I have been through it. You understand what it’s like to go to an arena and be the only person of color, the only Black face that’s in your dressing room. You understand what it’s like when you go to opposing rinks and fans are yelling at you, calling you names making gestures,” Payne said.
Having endured more than any person should, Smereck said he now feels empowered to help grow the game he loves in minority communities.
“Be there for them and encourage them to keep going and everything is going to get better,” Smereck said.
So that one day, all Black hockey players can be seen as “not just Black hockey players — they are hockey players, just like everybody else,” Payne said.
“I can be one of the people to change that in this sport,” Smereck said.
He's hoping to turn a moment that was meant to destroy into one that can build.
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