There are approximately 100 African American and other student-athletes of color this school year at the University of Minnesota. In an occasional series throughout the 2025-26 academic and sports year, the MSR will highlight many of these players.
This week: Minnesota freshman forward Javon Moore.
Kyle Okposo of St. Paul became the first Black men’s hockey player in University of Minnesota modern history. The Gophers women had at least two Black females (Canadian native LaToya Clarke in the 90s and Eden Prairie’s Crystalyn Hengler (2018-23).
Javon Moore this season becomes only the second Black player in Gopher men’s hockey.
Minnesota is well known as “The State of Hockey,” and Blacks have played an overlooked but significant part in the sport for decades, as early as the turn of the 20th Century.
Bobby Marshall, Minnesota’s first Black superstar, is regarded as the state’s first hockey star as a member of the 1908 Minneapolis Wanderers Burton Cup winning team. Charles “Chuck” Logan is the first Black player to have participated in the state high school hockey tournament in 1942. Tony McGee was the first Black hockey head coach in 1999 for a Minneapolis co-op hockey team.
Longtime physician Dr. Joel Boyd was the first Black team doctor in the NHL and for the 1998 USA Olympic team.
Nikki Nightengale was the only Black Minnesotan on the first Minnesota PWHL championship team in 2024. Minneapolis native Kensie Malone was an all-MIAC women’s hockey player at Augsburg (2021-23) before transferring to the University of New York at Oswego for her final two college seasons. Duluth’s Nina Thorson is in her first year at Hamline.
“I’m just an athletic guy,” stressed the 6’4” 210-pound Moore, a forward from Carver, Minn. “Both of my parents play basketball; my grandpa played hockey growing up, and I was skating around in rollerblades in the house when I was younger.
“So, I fell in love with that, and always was watching hockey,” he pointed out.
At Minnetonka High School, Moore was a Minnesota Mr. Hockey finalist in 2023-24 and made third team All-Metro. His three years on the team included playing on the school’s state championship team in his junior season and leading the team in scoring his sophomore year.
Last season, Moore opted not to come to Minnesota but rather play in the USHL for Sioux Falls. He played there three seasons (three games in 2023-24, and five games in 2022-23) at the end of his prep hockey seasons. He finished fourth in scoring last season.
Both he and Gopher Coach Bob Motzko felt spending his “gap year” in Sioux Falls between graduating from Minnetonka and enrolling at Minnesota greatly helped him as he transitioned to D1 college hockey.
“I feel [it’s] just another year to develop and find my game even more,” said Moore, “and that league prepares you for here and not rushing things.”
Added Motzko, “The big thing for him is because he’s young. We’re already seeing it from the start of the year to now as his body starts to mature. He’s kind of got a freshman body — he’s sturdy, but it breaks down a little bit.”
Earlier this season Moore scored the overtime game winner, a multi-point game for him vs. Denver in November. The performance earned him Big Ten Second Star of the Week (Dec. 2).
Off the ice, Moore is studying business marketing. But he aspires to play in the NHL — he was selected in the fourth round by Ottawa in the 2024 NHL Draft. If he makes it, Moore will be only the sixth Black Minnesotan to play in the league.
“He’s got a chance to play in the National Hockey League for a long time,” Motzko pointed out. “I love him.”
Moore knows he’s unique, and not for his height — he’s Black playing in the virtually all-White sport of hockey.
“I feel like it starts with yourself just being comfortable playing the sport that’s not common for your color,” he said. “I feel like these guys are really welcoming, and every team I’ve been on so far have been really welcoming and I just feel like one of them.”
An Olympic first
Laila Edwards will be the first U.S. Black player on the U.S. Olympic hockey team when the Winter Olympics begin next month. Sarah Nurse and Sophia Jaques, two of three Blacks in the PWHL, are playing for Hockey Canada.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.