Color of Hockey: Dorrington's legacy lives on

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past eight years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the game. Today, he profiles Max and Jackson Dorrington, relatives of the late Art Dorrington, who was the first Black player to sign an NHL contract.

Max and Jackson Dorrington said most of their teammates and coaches didn't know that their family is part of hockey history.

The Dorrington brothers are distant cousins of the late Art Dorrington, who became the first Black player to sign an NHL contract when he joined the New York Rangers organization in 1950. Max and Jackson are continuing the legacy of Dorrington, who died on Dec. 29, 2017 at the age of 87, by playing elite-level hockey with hopes of someday reaching the NHL.

"A lot of my friends, they don't know," Max Dorrington said. "It's definitely pretty cool to be playing the game knowing that I'm related to someone who had an impact on it prior to us."

Max, 19, is a freshman forward at St. Lawrence University, an NCAA Division I school in Canton, New York. He was captain of Cushing Academy's hockey team last season and scored 46 points (23 goals, 23 assists) in 43 games.

Jackson, 16, is a junior defenseman at Cushing, a Massachusetts prep school, where he had 27 points (nine goals, 18 assists) in 34 games. He was chosen by Des Moines in the second round (No. 19) of the United States Hockey League draft in May.

The brothers played for the all-Black-and-Hispanic NextGen team that was coached by former NHL players Mike Grier and Bryce Salvador and won the Pro Division at the 2020 Beantown Summer Classic, an invitation-only tournament in Exeter, New Hampshire, in August.

"It's pretty cool that (Art Dorrington) was a pioneer in hockey for people of color," Jackson Dorrington said. "Obviously, there are more people of color playing hockey, and it's pretty cool that we just played on the NextGen team."

Steve Jacobs, Cushing Academy's boys hockey coach, was unaware of the brothers' lineage to Art Dorrington and called it "pretty amazing." He believes that Max and Jackson have the skill and determination to play professionally.

"Max is a big, strong power forward, smart," Jacobs said. "He doesn't get all the credit he deserves as a player and he's going to show everybody, in my mind. He came on from 17 points to 48 points this past year. Jackson loves to be physical, has great instincts, he can skate the puck out, makes great passes and he can be a big shut-down guy. Both him and Max, every practice, every game, they make an impact."

The brothers, raised in North Reading, Massachusetts, never met Art Dorrington, who was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, on March 13, 1930, and made his home in Atlantic City, New Jersey, after his long career in the minor leagues during an era when there were just six NHL teams. They learned about Dorrington's his place in hockey history from their father, Michael Dorrington, and other relatives.

Art Dorrington was a strong-skating forward with a deadly accurate shot who scored 320 points (163 goals, 157 assists) in 345 games in the Eastern Hockey League, Eastern Amateur Hockey League and International Hockey League. He led the EHL in goals in 1954-55 with 33 in 49 games for Washington.

The Rangers scouted Dorrington when he was 20 and signed him to a professional contract that paid him $85 per week with a $100 signing bonus.

He was heralded as the "Jackie Robinson of hockey" eight years before Willie O'Ree became the NHL's first Black player when he debuted with the Boston Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens at the Forum on Jan. 18, 1958.

The Rangers assigned Dorrington to Atlantic City of the EHL and he scored 34 points (18 goals, 16 assists) in 49 games in 1950-51.

However, Dorrington never reached the NHL. Military service sent him to Europe for 22 months, and a gruesome knee injury suffered in a 1958 EHL game with Philadelphia effectively ended it. He retired after the 1960-61 season and settled in Atlantic City, where he worked for the sheriff's department for 20 years.

In 1997, he founded the Art Dorrington Ice Hockey Foundation, a nonprofit program that gives the area's low-income children the chance to learn and play the game. Dorrington's mantra to the kids: "On The Ice -- Off The Streets." Atlantic City Boardwalk and Convention Center officials honored Dorrington by naming the Board Walk Hall ice surface the Art Dorrington Ice Rink in January 2012.

"I never really quite knew the significance of it until I was actually older, in terms of being the first Black person to sign an NHL contract," said Michael Dorrington, Max and Jackson's father. "It's certainly something that the family is very proud of."

Judah Dorrington, Art Dorrington's daughter, was proud when she learned that her father's NHL quest continues through Max and Jackson.

"It's definitely in the genes," said Judah Dorrington, who serves on the Dorrington foundation board. "It's important that the name Dorrington, a Black man who played hockey, is out there because there are so many people that don't know that Black people play hockey and that Black people have played hockey since the beginning."

Art Dorrington photo courtesy of Hockey Hall of Fame Images