How these women fell in love with hockey in Kenya — and found their way to a rink in Toronto
There are only a handful of rinks across the entire continent of Africa. At one, these women have big dreams.
Chumbana Likiza had never seen a Zamboni so large.
Back home in Nairobi, Kenya, at the hockey rink where she learned the game — the only rink in east and central Africa, about a quarter the size of an NHL rink and housed in a local hotel — the Zamboni is no longer than a metre. It doesn’t carry water, so the players have to pour water on the ice themselves.
Likiza’s eyes were wide when she stepped into the Ford Performance Centre in Etobicoke on Wednesday.
“I was so shocked,” Likiza, 21, said, “because I haven’t seen a rink that big. It was like, wow.”
Her teammates, Carol Joseph and Hanan Ali, felt the same way. They have seldom travelled outside Kenya. Joseph, 29, had never been on a plane. This week, they find themselves in Toronto for a three-day camp at the Ford Performance Centre hosted by Black Girl Hockey Club Canada, which aims to make the sport a welcoming place for Black women of all ages.
How did a group of girls from Nairobi fall in love with Canada’s pastime? It’s a question Tim Colby sometimes wonders.
The Solar Ice Rink in Nairobi, where the Ice Lions play, is the only rink in all of east and central Africa. Kenya Ice Lions
Colby, a Canadian ex-pat, moved to Kenya in 2010 for a job with the High Commission of Canada and played casually at the rink for years. Around 2016, the Kenyans he played with asked him to coach the team, known as the Kenya Ice Lions. He said no.
“But they were so into it,” Colby said. “It was crazy. Just dying to play more and get serious about it, get better at it.”
Their enthusiasm eventually changed his mind. Years later, Colby still runs practice. Sometimes, on the long drive home from the rink on the outskirts of Nairobi, not far from the airport, he catches himself.
“We’ve got an ice hockey program here,” he thinks. “It’s just so weird sometimes, and so beautiful … I have to catch myself every once in a while and see how special it is.”
It’s special, Colby said, simply because of how much the players care. In Nairobi’s traffic, the rink can take two hours to get to. Ice time costs $100 (U.S.) an hour. Still, people come.
Like Joseph. She once roller-skated every Sunday and one day heard of people playing hockey.
“It’s almost similar (to roller-skating) but played on the ice,” Joseph recalled being told. “I was like, ‘Ice in Kenya? Ice in Africa?’”
It takes her more than an hour to get to the rink for each weekly practice session. But she’s been sold on hockey since she first tried it.
Earlier this year, Joseph came across a post from Black Girl Hockey Club Canada about a camp in Toronto, and reached out.
“Hello,” she wrote in an Instagram message, “one day I would love to attend one of your camps.”
Saroya Tinker, the executive director of the organization, messaged back: Why not this year?
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’” Joseph recalled. “My heart was trembling.”
Joseph worried she couldn’t pay for the trip, but Tinker assured her the camp was free. All costs — including hotels and food — are covered by the organization and its partners. It goes back to the club’s central goal to remove barriers for Black girls and women playing hockey.
“Our goal is to reach out and branch out and make sure that Black women feel welcome in the game,” Tinker said. “Whether they’re in Canada or in Kenya, we want everyone to feel welcome.”
Chumbana Likiza, third from right, brings 10 kids to the rink on Saturdays, when they run a program for youth. “She’s so dedicated to this,” Colby said. Kenya Ice Lions
Since arriving in Toronto on Tuesday — Ali said she was too excited to sleep the night before flying — the group has seen the sights, getting a tour of the Rogers Centre, exploring the Hockey Hall of Fame and going up the CN Tower. The highlight for Joseph was seeing the Stanley Cup.
They also met PWHL star Sarah Nurse, one of their favourite players. The three are huge Toronto Sceptres fans, sometimes setting alarms for midnight or later to watch the games live, but are torn on whether to cheer for Vancouver, Nurse’s new team.
Likiza is resolute. The Sceptres still have Natalie Spooner, so she’ll still cheer for them.
Likiza, Joseph and Ali have big dreams for what comes next. The Ice Lions are about 70 per cent men, Joseph said, and the teams are mixed. Joseph wants to change that and start a dedicated women’s team.
“We want to bring up the small ones to love the game and to know that even women can play ice hockey,” Joseph said. “No one is excluded.”
The Ice Lions will need funding to cover the additional ice time, Colby said. This trip could help.
“We are showing the world that hockey doesn’t have to be in a country where there’s winter, where it snows,” Joseph said. “It can also be in Africa.”
-theStar
