‘Black Ice: The Rhythm’ movie highlights challenges underserved communities face in sport of ice hockey

The lights dimmed, the projector started, and mentor officers from several community-based units in the Dallas Police Department settled in at the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center for the screening of ‘Black Ice: The Rhythm’.

“A lot of our mentors have never experienced hockey,” Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center CEO Trina Terrell Andrews said. “It’s all about exposure for us.”

The new movie from Dallas-based producer Ashlee C. and writer/director Gerald McBride is about a group of Black roller skaters turned ice hockey players, who confront racism and discrimination as they take on the predominantly White world of hockey. McBride got the idea for the plot after attending a hockey game and not seeing another African American in the arena.

“It just aroused my curiosity about where are all the Black players in hockey,” McBride said. “I want kids to realize and understand that this sport is available to them.”

“I didn’t really know anything about the sport, but I know that I wanted to be a part of making a difference in the community,” Ashlee C. said. “I’m from Dallas/Fort Worth area and there’s a lot of communities that resemble the community in that story.”

The goal of showing the movie at Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center was to open eyes to what’s possible with access and determination, whether that’s hockey or something else.

“Well these officers are community-based officers,” retired DPD officer and former Black Police Association of Dallas President Terrance Hopkins said. “So these officers will now be equipped with that information to go and give to some of these kids as they come across them to say, hey, this is something new you could try…to get outside the community that a lot of times they’re just stuck right there in.”