United by Hockey museum celebrates diversity strides made by Kraken

SEATTLE -- Within the cozy confines of the United by Hockey Mobile Museum, Everett Fitzhugh and JT Brown took a break from filming an informational piece about the exhibit to chat with a local high school student and his dad about their lives as professional sports broadcasters.

“I’m here meeting JT and Everett, talking about being a broadcaster, getting into stuff like that, and seeing how I could possibly make a career out of it,” Giulio Banchero, a sophomore at O’Dea High School in Seattle, said. “[They told me] have your own thing. Be unique, be different, be yourself.”

Mario Banchero, Giulio’s father, said the Seattle Kraken had reached out to the school to offer up this opportunity for students of color who are interested in sports broadcasting. As a result, Giulio was invited to meet Fitzhugh, Seattle’s radio play-by-play voice, and Brown, the analyst on television broadcasts.

Fitzhugh and Brown continue to serve as role models for young people of color who might be interested in the sport of hockey. In 2020, Fitzhugh became the first Black radio play-by-play announcer in the NHL when he was hired by the Kraken. He and Brown, who played eight seasons in the NHL with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks, and Minnesota Wild, teamed up to become the first all-Black broadcasting duo in NHL history on Feb. 17, 2022, in a game between the Kraken and the Winnipeg Jets.

“It was an awesome moment for Everett and me to make the first all-Black broadcasting team,” Brown said. “But at the same time, it’s just awesome because I got to work with a friend. We spend a lot of time at rinks together, we have a lot of fun together.

“I think we’ll look back at this 10 or 15 years from now, and obviously I think our goal is that there will be many more. [We won’t be] worried about who was the first, and it’s just a normal thing at that point.”

Brown said it took time for the impact of that moment to really set in, and that he didn’t fully grasp the achievement it was until the game ended.

“We could see what impact that could have on maybe a young kid who wants to be a broadcaster,” Brown said. “And to be able to see somebody that looks just like them on the TV, broadcasting.”

Fitzhugh had worked his way up to the NHL through the broadcasting ranks of college hockey (Bowling Green State University) and the ECHL (Cincinnati Cyclones).

“The nerves were definitely there,” Fitzhugh said. “But to be able to call one of the few Black folks who’s played this game a good friend of mine, and then to be able to broadcast and do my job that I love with one of my good friends? That was so special for me.”

Fitzhugh and Brown were not the only Black members of the Kraken’s traveling party that night. Social media manager Zack Peggins, producer Marcus Allen and massage therapist Jason Senat were also involved.

“I stepped back, and I was like, ‘Man, we really just did this,’” Fitzhugh said. “Five Black folks working the same NHL game. You don’t see that that often, so that was so special for me.”

As Fitzhugh and Brown were recalling their historic night in Winnipeg, Kwame Damon Mason, documentary filmmaker and co-curator of the United by Hockey Mobile Museum, began welcoming guests of the Enterprise Fan Village into the exhibit.

The Enterprise Fan Village is a festival being held in conjunction with the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic, which will be played Monday (3 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS) at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. The mobile museum is one of the many attractions fans can experience within the Fan Village.

“There’s a team of us that have gotten together to come in and put some ideas together,” Mason said. “[We want to] expand the ideas of the minorities and people that are not necessarily always talked about in the game of hockey.”

What Mason and his team have produced packs a big informational punch for a small space. It features artifacts from some of the game’s groundbreakers. The museum also contains photos, videos, and relics relating to indigenous hockey players, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and more.

It also has information on disabled hockey players, including a new virtual reality experience called “No Excuses.”

“It’s a story about a young man by the name of Malik Jones, who is a paralympic athlete and a gold medalist for Team USA,” Mason said. “And we get to tell his story in a virtual reality setting, which gives the spectators the ability to be right there on the ice with him and learn a little bit more about what it takes to be a person of a disability and playing the game of hockey.”