First of two parts
MIAC hockey doesn’t get the local media shine other college hockey leagues do. But it should, says St. Olaf senior forward Kelijah McElroy.
“Yeah, I think the MIAC is a league that any given team can win on any given night,” he stressed. “I think you have to show up every night. It’s a great league — teams are big, they’re fast, they’re strong, they’re smart.” McElroy added with pride that the MIAC “blew my expectations out of the water.”
McElroy is the only Black player on the Oles hockey team.
“Our hockey director was the father of the assistant coach at St. Olaf, so I was put in contact with the assistant coach here at St. Olaf,” he recalled. “I came to visit while playing a tournament at Shattuck [St. Mary’s, a private prep school in Faribault], and I didn’t have any other offers.
“I saw the school … very diverse school with a lot of international demographics and other backgrounds. I thought this would be a great fit for me. I didn’t want to play juniors, so the opportunity to come straight into college, get my degree, get my education, and play hockey at a high level is the main overall reason why I chose St. Olaf.”
McElroy’s hometown is Laurel, Md.; he graduated from South Kent School. But while a youngster in Buffalo, N.Y. he discovered his love for hockey. McElroy’s parents are both in the military and they moved a lot.
“I was eight years old. I played every other sport you could think of before hockey, and I would always see my friends playing. I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do that.’ And my dad was like, ‘You have to learn how to skate first because [I have to] buy you all this stuff to get you into the sport.’
“So I took figure skating and basic skating lessons. That led to me playing with my friends in youth leagues and house leagues.”
On being the only one, McElroy said, “Obviously there’s not many Black hockey athletes, but as I grew up, just being someone that represents other kids that look like me playing hockey was an important step in my life, to just keep striving to be the best.”
McElroy said he will graduate this spring with a computer science degree. Cyber security is a possible field he may pursue “because it’s like a growing field that I think is really interesting.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
More MIAC Diversity
Yet more MIAC diversity
St. Catherine women’s basketball diversity is reflected in first-year player Beatrice Clayton and Assistant Coach Geno Bullard as the Wildcats build academic and athletic success.