Carey Price is doing the work to make hockey a place for everyone

Carey Price helped carry the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup Final with his remarkable goaltending. The work he’s doing off the ice is just as impressive.

In team sports, every athlete deserves some share of both blame and credit for their team’s outcome. As fans, we’re often drawn to those who unselfishly pass their share of credit onto their teammates, looking to shoulder more than their share of the blame. Carey Price, MVP for the Stanley Cup Finalists, son of Lynda, chief of the Ulkatcho First nation and grandson of Theresa, Residential School Survivor, is just such a person. This was recently shown in a press conference moments after the Montreal Canadiens were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“I just don’t think I played well enough at the start of the series,” he said.

There’s truth to this, but Montreal only made it to the Final, and won a game in the series because Price was exceptional. His skills make him an all-time hockey player. His character, shown through his modesty but best exemplified through his work with Indigenous communities, make him an all-time person off the ice.

Before this cup run, many thought Price’s career was fading, but his record stood tall. Price has had ups and downs in his career, such as Montreal’s 2009 Conference Final run where he was second to Jaroslav Halak as Montreal’s starter. Nonetheless, Price’s highs make the memories of “Is Carey Price actually good?” laughable.

Internationally or in North America, Carey’s accolades have cemented him as an all-time great: He won a gold for team Canada in the 2007 World Juniors, leading the tournament in save percentage and wins. Another gold came in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, with a video-game-like .971 percentage, paired with being anointed as the best goaltender of the tournament. His Hart, and Vezina proved the hockey elite liked him but more impressively, his fellow peers recognized him: Price is a Ted Lindsay award-winner, in addition to being named the best goalie in the annual NHLPA poll 3three years in a row since 2017-18, and third-best goaltender in the most recent 2020-21 NHLPA survey. He lacks a Stanley Cup, and while the wound of his most recent defeat still sting, Price willing a team into a Stanley Cup Final they had no business being in is a myth-builder.

Carey Price is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in hockey

All this is nice, but life is more than what happens in the crease, and right now in Canada, our collective consciousness has been focused on the life of Indigenous People. That focus is hundreds of years overdue, and be it the lack of clean drinking water on reserves or the genocidal goal of residential schools and the thousands of unmarked graves of Indigenous children found outside, Canada bears responsibility for its actions against Indigenous people, and inaction towards reconciliation. Hockey is “Canada’s Game” and despite the game’s reverence for Price, most of its treatment of Indigenous players falls short, just like Canada’s government.

Ted Nolan, a member of the Ojibwe tribe, famously was the NHL’s 1997 Coach of the year and did not receive an NHL coaching job offer from 1998-2006. Anti-Indigenous sentiment is attributed to be the likely cause of that — to Sports Illustrated; Nolan has cited being plagued by racist rumors throughout his time in hockey, such as the frequent racist trope of him being an alcoholic. Ethan Bear, a member of the Ochapowace First Nation and defenseman for the Oilers, was inundated with racist abuse online after his team’s elimination from the playoffs in May. Bear and Nolan are two figures who have succeeded more in hockey than 99 percent of anyone who ever put in skates; if professionals face this abuse, what about those in the minor leagues? Unsurprisingly, Indigenous players in the juniors and lower-level hockey leagues are familiar with discrimination and anti-Indigenous sentiment, like when a Bantam Indigenous team experienced slurs thrown at them by the crowd in a Quebec tournament.

This is where Price’s character has come in. In 2015, with the NHL’s eyes upon him during his Vezina acceptance speech, he gave a message to Indigenous Youth: “Be proud of your heritage, and don’t be discouraged from the improbable.”

Signing off with the Dakelh language of the Ulkatcho, Price used his enormous platform to give words of encouragement to a group of people who rarely get it from the hockey establishment. While that itself is an NHL rarity, Price followed through his meaningful symbolic language with meaningful action. In addition to being The Breakfast Club of Canada’s national ambassador for First Nations, he started two breakfast programs in his hometown and primarily Indigenous community of Anahim Lake. To a food-insecure child, a breakfast program can be life-changing.

It’s worth noting that Carey’s actions are not just meaningful for Canada’s Indigenous populations – they’re meaningful for anyone who doesn’t fit into the straight, white, default hockey player archetype. I’m mixed: half-Filipino, half Caucasian, and when you’re mixed you gain a unique perspective on race.

I played organized hockey throughout my childhood (admittedly, I was only good at getting into the penalty box) and I’ll never forget when after a whistle, a player on another team, seemingly confused by my racially ambiguous face, started to list just about every racial slur there was at. Slurs directed at Black people, Mexicans, Arabs and finally, throwing the right slur at the end. The referee presumably heard everything and gave no penalty, but the most disturbing thing about that day, is how normal it felt. Like it was something I should expect, being the “other”.

Carey Price being a “non-default” will help keep hockey players of color from having to feel slurs and shame as normal. Price as a man, off the ice, will make Canada’s Game better for everyone else. POC and Indigenous people are used to platitudes and not actions; Price talks the talk and always follows through. Not only should future goaltenders emulate his play, but his advocacy is an example that players, the NHL and Canadian officials should follow as well.