Renee Hess remembers her first Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game — she was in Orange County, Calif., had wonderful seats, and there was a hockey fight, a novelty she said rarely occurs now.

She was enamored by the sport.

Today, she is the founder and executive director of California-based Black Girl Hockey Club, which she said is about Black joy.

“That is what this is all about — getting together, building community and retaining that joy in a sport that we love but may not always love us back,” she said.

Hess traveled from Riverside, Calif., to Pittsburgh for a VIP Skate on Tuesday with the Black Girl Hockey Club, presented by the Penguins and Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation at Hunt Armory Seasonal Ice Rink. Eleven sixth grade girls from The Neighborhood Academy in Stanton Heights participated.

On Tuesday night, the Penguins celebrated Black History Month with their annual Black Hockey History Game, against the Winnipeg Jets at PPG Paints Arena.

The Penguins have been doing the Black History Month game since 2020 and connected with Black Girl Hockey Club in 2019. They are expanding the effort to make sure Black people see themselves on the ice and in the stands.

“It was important for me to advocate for Black women in hockey because no one was advocating for Black women in hockey,” Hess said.

She pointed out that Black women have been invested in hockey for years, from Angela James with the Central Ontario Women’s Hockey League in the 1980s to Blake Bolden, a longtime player who today scouts for the Los Angeles Kings in the National Hockey League, and now Sarah Nurse on the Canadian Women’s National Team.

“But all the Black women I know felt like they were alone in that space,’ Hess said.

It started out as a group chat in October 2018. Hess said it was initially a selfish endeavor: “I just wanted Black women to hang out with, to talk hockey and to go see games.”

Once they started doing that, she realized they had more ability than just to be a fan club.

Now the nonprofit organization has expanded beyond the digital world — it has a mentorship program and gives scholarships in addition to getting together throughout North America and having events like the one in Pittsburgh.

“Our programming hopes to get Black women involved in hockey,” Hess said. “Retention in these spaces can be really difficult because of things like financial costs as well as the intricacies of racism in hockey.”

Devin Skinner, 25, knows all about racism in hockey. An alumnus of The Neighborhood Academy, he is also a coach and hockey activist. “A lot of people do not think this is a Black person’s sport, but they need to know the knowledge of the game, where we came from and what this sport is truly about.”

Some of Skinner’s inspirations have been Howard Smith, a DEI coordinator with the Mid-American Hockey Association, and Akim Aliu, who played for HC VERVA Litvínov, in Czech Extraliga.

Hockey is for everyone, Smith said.

Smith coached Skinner. As a person of color who has taught hockey in Pittsburgh for more than 24 years, he said Tuesday’s event was important.

“Events like this showcase what it means to be in the sport and helps to spread the message that hockey is for everyone,” Smith said.

His hockey inspirations growing up were people like Willie O’Ree with the Boston Bruins, pioneers who paved the way for him to be able to lace up a pair of skates.

“I was looking forward to learning how to skate. My favorite part was helping my friends,” said Aurora Jackson, 11, who participated in the event.

Amariah Sledge-Brazil, 11, of Garfield, had never gone skating before. “I was nervous but excited,” she said. By the end of the morning, she was swirling around the rink on her own.

“I know a lot of them have never been ice skating so I’m always trying to expose them to do new things and ways to do new things that they maybe wouldn’t have the opportunity to do,” said Shante Eberhardt, a paraprofessional at The Neighborhood Academy. “Learning with them was fun. I want to be for them what I needed when I was in school.”

Tuesday’s game is a culmination of all the work the Penguins organization does year around, said Delvina L. Morrow, vice president for community affairs and DEI with the franchise.

“We know how important to support Black women in this space,” Morrow said. “For us it is showing up in many different ways, when we talk about Black History Month, it is about inspiring and connecting. We use our platform as a hockey team to try and drive connectivity and bring people together, and we also work with a few Hill District organizations.”

The Penguins had a pep rally with a Pittsburgh Public Schools marching band, a Black Girl Hockey Club VIP meetup and more than 10 organizations, including the African American Chamber of Commerce, sharing resources that uplift and advance Blackness in Pittsburgh.

“I want these girls and folks that look like us to realize that we have a space in this sport and we are not going to give it up so easily,” Hess said.

To see more of the Penguins Black History month programming, visit their website.

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