Speaking with LA Kings’ Trailblazing Scout Blake Bolden: Part 2

(Photo credit: Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.” -Mahatma Gandhi

Concluding our two-part series with Blake Bolden, the Los Angeles Kings’ scout touches on topics such as her professional playing career, the Hockey Diversity Alliance and meeting the great Willie O’Ree.

While her collegiate career came to a close, Blake Bolden didn’t have to travel far.

After being selected fifth overall by the Boston Blades in 2013, Bolden became the first Black woman to be taken in the history of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League Draft before helping lead her team to the Clarkson Cup championship at season’s end. In spite of the Blades’ success, however, Bolden admitted that her pro season wasn’t quite what she expected.

“In the CWHL, post-B.C., it was wild,” Bolden recalled. “We were called professional athletes but weren’t getting paid.”

Still, Bolden and company had no reservations in playing, and succeeding in, the game for the sheer love of it.

“We all did it because we wanted to grow the game and because we loved it,” beamed the former blueliner. “Playing hockey, traveling 10 hours on a bus to then go to your 9-to-5 job on Monday morning.”

While she and her teammates did play for the love of the game, Bolden was thrilled at the prospect of receiving compensation to play in the upstart National Women’s Hockey League, jumping ship in 2015 with the Boston Pride.

“In the NWHL, it was the first sign of improvement: compensation for all our hard work,” the 29-year-old said. “The needle is moving. Slowly, but moving. Patience is a lesson I’ve learned.”

On the ice, meanwhile, Bolden was just as integral as she helped lead the Pride to the inaugural Isobel Cup championship.

Bolden’s playing career, which included stops in Switzerland for HC Lugano and for the NWHL’s Buffalo Beauts, did not wrap up before meeting the man who broke hockey’s colour barrier, Mr. Willie O’Ree.

“I met Willie in Boston for the first time at the showing of ‘Soul on Ice’ in 2014, I believe,” Bolden remembered. “Hearing his story was absolutely captivating. We engaged in conversation, I hung out with Kwame Mason, director and producer of the film, and from there we all cultivated this amazing friendship celebrating our Blackness and love for the game. The stories he’d share with me off camera about his experiences were so impactful. To me, it’s such an honor being mentioned in the same breath. Ironically, we now live in the same city and often cross paths for events, especially around February for Black History Month. He’s such an icon and a really good man, simply put. A hard working trailblazer, who tells his story and inspires us all. We are lucky to have him.”

This past March, Bolden made even more history, becoming the first Black female scout in NHL history.

The Los Angeles Kings came calling and hired Bolden to their seasoned scouting staff, particularly to guide the club’s new inclusion initiative. As thrilled as she was to receive the call, though, the former defender was caught off-guard when the Kings first reached out.

“It wasn’t something that I was prepared for,” Bolden admitted. “From that initial introduction to Luc [Robitaille] and my interview process following, I really had to pinch myself to say, ‘Yes, this is really happening!’

“I have said many times how progressive the Kings’ organization is, how giving a woman this role as a scout where not many get the opportunity is huge.”

As a writer who was initially reticent to contact others for interviews due to the fear and self-consciousness of being a person who stutters, reaching out to the Los Angeles Kings was initially difficult. However, said fears were quickly quelled when I discovered how understanding, accommodating and welcoming those within the organization were, from broadcasters to coaches to executives.

“They are changing the game,” Bolden stated. “I’m just glad I can be a part of it.”

Bolden, though, is not the first female scout in NHL history. That distinction belongs to Hall-of-Famer Cammi Granato, whom the expansion Seattle Kraken hired in 2019.

In addition to being one of the pioneers of women’s hockey, while leading Team USA to unprecedented success on the ice, Granato continues to be one of the most instrumental role models not only for Bolden but for aspiring female hockey players everywhere.

“I can only say that I am privileged to live in a time where this change in hockey culture is happening before my eyes,” beamed Bolden. “This is a domino effect to what will continue to happen in the future. Cammi was the start in this role, and there are so many roles that women have the credentials to fill. All it takes is a little trust. We are becoming more and more open, and that can only be a great thing.”

While Bolden and the Kings have been preparing for the upcoming draft, though, many more teams have been busy participating in this year’s unusual postseason.

While COVID-19 has forced the NHL to push the Stanley Cup playoffs to the summer, it was social issues such as the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that forced the league to temporarily postpone action earlier this summer.

In June, seven former and current NHL players, including Akim Aliu and Evander Kane, formed the Hockey Diversity Alliance with a mission ‘to eradicate racism and intolerance in hockey.’ The HDA was at the forefront of said postponement, pushing forth the message that they are serious about the injustices of racism, intolerance and inequality in the NHL and in hockey overall.

I asked Bolden how she feels about this initiative and what lies ahead.

“No one has ever been in this position with this much pressure,” the Kings scout noted. “I think it’s great that all sports teams and franchises are supporting one another’s initiatives. The NHL is very unique in the fact that many of its players aren’t even from the U.S. It’s great to see players taking a stand against racism and social injustices together.”

Bolden, however, knows that there is still a lot of work ahead. Regardless, the Boston College alum cannot help but feel optimistic about the future of hockey in terms of inclusiveness and diversity.

“Now, the work begins,” Bolden said. “And that takes time, patience and support, from youth hockey all the way up the ladder to the NHL. I think the future is very bright for our hockey community.”

As far as role models go, Bolden was quick to point out of the greatest athletes ever — in any sport.

“I think Serena Williams is everyone’s shero,” Bolden said. “I always watched her as a girl, and her sister Venus. Paving the way for people that look like her to play tennis at the highest level. That really spoke to me.”

For hockey, Bolden was most enamoured by one of the NHL’s best teams of the 90’s and 2000’s.

“I grew up loving the Detroit Red Wings,” noted the former all-star. “Hull, Shanahan, Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom; the way they changed the game was amazing.”

As for the scout’s biggest influences and most notable inspirations, it came back to family and the work they did in making the Bolden’s dreams become a reality.

“My family was my biggest support system, my mother especially,” Bolden emphasized. “Working so hard to put me through prep school so that I could live out my dream of playing for Boston College and on from there. So many people, it really takes a village to inspire and help grow a young and impressionable mind.”

Whether it was because she was a girl or because she was Black, Blake Bolden has been told more than enough times that she couldn’t do it. How could a girl possibly play a boy’s game, her skeptics wondered. If there were any reason to feel deterred by such doubts, though, Bolden clearly did not interpret it the way said skeptics hoped she would.

‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’ may be one of the oldest cliches there is, but that just means that it is as resonant today as when it was when it was first uttered. Blake Bolden is the living embodiment of this cliche, nay, philosophy.

If she was the only girl on her team, so be it; if she was the only Black person on her team, so be it. Blake Bolden’s passion and love for the game of hockey has far superseded the odds or what she was told by others who found alternative ways to channel their own anger, bitterness and jealousy.

Blake Bolden not only played hockey but took her talents to the prestigious Boston College en route to a successful tenure in the professional ranks. Now, Bolden is an integral member of the Los Angeles Kings’ scouting staff, helping the organization achieve success at a pivotal time in their rebuild.

In addition to ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ Blake Bolden is the living embodiment of character, resilience and integrity. She may have broken barriers as a Black woman but the former defender simply wants to make her mark as a determined and talent hockey mind first and foremost.

The tears and anguish of the late Herb Carnegie during an interview recalling how he never had the opportunity to play in the NHL continues to echo in this writer’s mind as does the attempt to understand how Wayne Simmonds felt when an ignorant fan threw a banana at him during a game or why Joel Ward received hateful Tweets for, of all things, scoring a series-winning goal. These are not only stark examples of why hockey needs to push harder to emphasize equality and diversity but, whatever our skin colour, gender or background, why we need to be more empathetic as both hockey fans and as human beings.

A big smile forming on a child’s face when they first pick up a hockey stick or scoring their first goal shouldn’t be measured by what they look like. What should matter is the ability to reflect on how we felt when we first fell in love with hockey — or anything, for that matter — and how confident and determined we felt in achieving success and striving for our dreams.

I, along with countless other hockey fans, look forward to the work Blake Bolden does for the Los Angeles Kings and for the game of hockey. Bolden’s role with the Kings, and in hockey overall, has been ultimately earned in a streak of hard work and determination that began with a cynic making the decision to tell the 29-year-old, ‘You can’t do it.’

Blake Bolden has done it and will continue to do so, paving the way for many more to follow.

 

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