Celebrating African Heritage Month: Canada's first Black hockey line
As part of celebrating Black History Month (officially known as African Heritage Month in Nova Scotia), throughout the month of February the Saint Mary's Huskies and Atlantic University Sport will be highlighting some of the many incredible Black student-athletes whose impacts and achievements are important pieces of AUS history today and every day.
In February 1970, the Saint Mary's Huskies made history when a line of Bob Dawson (Dartmouth, N.S.), Percy Paris (Windsor, N.S.), and Darren Maxwell (Truro, N.S.), took to the the ice in a game against Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick.
It is believed to be the first, and only time, that a Canadian university hockey team played an all-Black forward line in a game.
Dawson, who in 1967 became the first Black man to play in the Atlantic Intercollegiate Hockey League, was moved from his usual position of defenceman for the trailblazing moment.
"It's something really we never really talked about with (coach Bob Boucher) as to why he might have done it," said Dawson in an interview with NHL.com in 2021. "We had a general feeling he was sensitive to issues race-wise and maybe this was his way of trying to make a statement by putting us out there. For the three of us, it didn't register with us until some years later."
"He didn't come to the three of us and say, 'Percy, you take center, Darrell, you're going to take the right side,'" added Paris, who went on to become an elected official in Nova Scotia. "He just tapped the three of us on the shoulder and said, 'Get out there,' and over the boards we went. And we figured it out once we got out there."
The Huskies finished the 1970 regular season with a 15-1-2 record, winning the AIAA championship and a CIAU silver medal, beginning their run of four straight national silver medal finishes.
Saint Mary's University honoured the line during homecoming festivities in 2017, with Dawson, Paris and Maxwell participating in a ceremonial puck drop with Willie O'Ree, the first Black NHL player, and speaking with students following a showing of "Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future," a Black hockey history documentary.
Bob Dawson, Percy Paris, Willie O'Ree and Darren Maxwell drop the ceremonial first puck in a game between the Saint Mary's Huskies and St. Francis Xavier X-Men on Oct. 13, 2017.
The 1970-71 Saint Mary's Huskies men's hockey team. Bob Dawson and Darrell Maxwell are pictured in the second row, Percy Paris is missing from the photo.
Saint Mary's Hockey Pioneers (left to right) Bob Dawson, Percy Paris and Darrell Maxwell are photographed on June 4, 2015 (contributed by Bob Dawson)