Toronto Six player Saroya Tinker stretching. Courtesy of Toronto SixLori Bolliger/Supplied
Saroya Tinker grew up east of Toronto in Oshawa. She loved to skate and began to play hockey as a kid. First, she noticed she was different because she was a female. Then she realized she was different because she was Black.
At 12, she was joking around with teammates in the dressing room when one told her, “Shut up, you dumb [n-word].”
“It confused me,” Tinker, now 24 and a defenceman for the Toronto Six and the co-founder and executive director of the Black Girl Hockey Club Canada, said Friday. The club will celebrate its public launch on Saturday with a free open skate at 3 p.m. at the Scotiabank Pond in Toronto’s Downsview Park. “I thought they supported me.”
Troubled, she spoke to her father, who is Jamaican. Her mother is Canadian-Ukrainian.
“He told me to let it go in one ear and out the other and to prove them wrong,” Tinker said. “But at a certain point you want to play because you enjoy it, not because you have to prove anything.”
An eight-sport athlete in high school, and the most valuable player on half of the teams, she became embittered and considered giving up hockey.
“It made more sense for me to push through,” Tinker said. “Quitting wasn’t an option.”
She was such a good defenceman that she received a four-year college scholarship and became the first Black player of any gender to play hockey at Yale.
Even there, she confronted racism.
“Most of the issues involved my own team,” Tinker said. “I expected teammates to be educated about it and I was disappointed by the lack of understanding and ignorance.”
The n-word was occasionally thrown around. Once, her teammates all put their hair in cornrows during a bus ride. When such incidents occurred, coaches did not make players take accountability.
“I saw the level of ignorance for anybody but the white community,” Tinker said.
While she was away at school, her parents heard about the Black Girl Hockey Club (BGHC), a non-profit group founded in California in 2018 that advocates for Black women in hockey. They attended a club get-together in Pittsburgh and through them Tinker was introduced to the organization.
Tinker was drafted by the New York-based Metropolitan Riveters of the National Women’s Hockey League after her senior year at Yale.Kate Frese/NWHL
After her senior year at Yale, she was drafted by the New York-based Metropolitan Riveters of the National Women’s Hockey League. She is in her second season with the Six of the Premier Hockey Federation and scored a goal last Sunday in a victory over the Minnesota Whitecaps.
“If I was going to play professionally, I wanted to have a purpose,” Tinker said. “I wanted to open doors for little Black girls behind me.”
It prompted her to establish the Saroya Strong mentorship program for BIPOC girls and women ages 9 to 21 across North America. Components of the program include mental health and wellness. She talks candidly to them about her own struggles with an eating disorder, body image and depression.
In February, she participated in a Nike campaign during Black History Month in which she appeared on electronic billboards outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles and Penn Station in New York.
“That’s definitely the highlight of my career,” she said, laughing.
She worked with the BGHC in the United States and this summer created its Canadian counterpart with financial support from Canadian Tire. Through the Jumpstart program, approximately 20 scholarships ranging from $2,500 to $6,500 will be awarded in each of the next three years to young Canadian BIPOC women to help support their athletic careers.
During the event on Saturday at Downsview Park, Bauer Hockey will announce a four-year, $100,000 equipment-grant program in collaboration with the BGHC. Ten young Canadian women who received scholarships through the BGHC in the United States will be honoured along with their families.
“I wanted to bring the Black Girl Hockey Club to Canada with a mission to inspire and sustain passion in Black girls,” Tinker said. She graduated from Yale with a bachelor of arts degree in the history of science, medicine and public health. “We want them to feel welcome when they walk into an arena.”
Tinker was already an ambassador for Jumpstart’s gender-equity initiative and Canadian Tire is thrilled to work with her on the new endeavour.
“The amazing thing is that she is so multidimensional when she speaks to young girls and women,” said Marco Di Buono, the president of Canadian Tire Jumpstart charities. “She can’t be bucketed as just a hockey player. She was also an amazing scholar.
“I tell people to try not to label her and fit her into one box.”
When she was playing in Oshawa, a parent from the opposing team asked her mother, who is white, which girl was her daughter. Her mother pointed out Tinker.
“The parent of the opposing team looked onto the ice, spotted me, and said, ‘I see. Cross-breeds make the best athletes. She looks good out there.’
“This man seemed to think of me as some sort of animal.”
Tinker is excited for Saturday’s free skate and big launch. She emphasizes that everyone, regardless of race, is welcome.
“We want to create a sense of community,” she says. “When I look back, I know exactly why I do what I do. That’s why I play professionally. I want Black girls to know they can play sports and have a safe space that is their own.”
Marty Klinkenberg