William Douglas wrote for NHL.com about the Hockey Hall of Fame receiving the jersey of Darren Lowe, the first Black person to play for Canada's Olympic team, in 1984. Lowe is the head coach of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues men's ice hockey team.
Darren Lowe isn't in the Hockey Hall of Fame. But his jersey is, thanks to Will Tudoroff.
Tudoroff recently gave the Hall the red and white jersey that Lowe wore at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, when he quietly made history as Canada's first Black Olympic hockey player.
"In my discussions with the Hall of Fame I said, 'You guys need this more than I do because I think it's really important that people of color -- and that goes into the Indigenous population as well as any person of color -- that it should be part of the Hall of Fame collection," said Tudoroff, a Hamilton, Ontario, native who lives in Athens, Georgia. "You get a Black Canadian kid that goes to the Hall of Fame and sees Jarome Iginla's jersey, sees Darren Lowe's jersey, sees Grant Fuhr's goalie mask and says, 'Hey, I can be just like them -- they represented Canada.'"
Lowe said he's honored that his jersey is part of the Hall, where it will eventually rotate between the Olympic history and diversity exhibits. It will also be part of a traveling display.
"I just think it's a pretty cool thing to have that recognition to be in a place where people got to look at the history of hockey," he said.