HPOC Movement to be represented at LATAM Cup

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. -- When Dominic Fullwood first joined a Hockey Players of Color Movement team for a tournament in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in August he felt something that he said he didn't always feel while playing on other teams.

At home.

"It's pretty much family," said Moore, an 11-year-old Black-Latino left wing from Raleigh, North Carolina. "This feels like I fit in."

Moore has rejoined his adopted hockey family to play on one of three coed teams from HPOC Movement, a group formed to highlight and support players of color, that are competing in the Amerigol LATAM Cup, a five-day international tournament at the Florida Panthers practice facility.

HPOC Movement assembled mostly Black, Hispanic and Asian players from across the United States and Canada to compete in the tournament's Under-12 and Under-16 divisions.

They're among 44 teams and more than 750 players representing 21 countries at the tournament including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Juan Carlos Otero, president of the Amerigol International Hockey Association and founder of the LATAM Cup tournament, said the group was invited to play in the tournament because they share the same mission as teams representing countries and territories: to grow the sport.

"I thought it was a great fit for our tournament and what we're trying to achieve and to demonstrate to everyone that minorities love the game like everyone else," Otero said. "It doesn't matter where you come from, it's all about the game and we want to give everyone the opportunity to play it."

HPOC is the brainchild of Jazmine Miley, a 27-year-old Afro-Latina who captains Puerto Rico's women's team at the LATAM Cup and who coaches the women's hockey at Paul Smith's College, an upstate New York school that competes in American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II.

Miley said she created the group in February 2020 to help give hockey players of color a sense of community and to bond with others who are often the only minority players on their teams or have been subjected to racist or sexist behavior from opposing players or so-called fans.

"This is another way for them to see they're not the only ones," said Miley, a defenseman who played collegiately at Finlandia University and Liberty University and professionally in Finland, France, Hungary and Norway. "It's an opportunity for them not to be 'the minority' in a sense."

Raven Reaves, a 14-year-old goalie on HPOC's Under-16 team, agreed.

"Don't get me wrong, every hockey team I've played for it felt like a space where I'm meant to be," said Reaves, who is Black and lives in Westchester, New York. "But when I'm playing with people who look like me and have the same experience as me, it feels like heaven, honestly. I think, in the future, if we can keep the HPOC thing going and we can go to more events, I really think we'll bring more people of color into the game."

Christopher Torres, a 15-year-old center from Greenville, South Carolina, said he enjoys playing for HPOC Movement and showing people that hockey is for everyone.

"Anybody can play hockey, it's not just for a certain type of people," Torres said. "We're all there playing the same game."