Buffalo Sabres alumni Mike Grier was named general manager of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, becoming the first-ever Black GM in the league in an historic move that’s undoubtedly been a long time coming.
The NHL is the last of the four ‘big’ professional men’s sports leagues to hire a Black person to be a general manager. The NBA and MLB did it in the 1970s with Wayne Embry (1972) and Bill Lucas (1976), while the NFL followed suit in 2002 with Ozzie Newsome.
While the fact that it took the NHL until the year 2022 to hire its first Black person as a general manager isn’t something to celebrate or praise the league for, Grier’s hiring is certainly special.