Sports

New Game in Town

June 5, 2019  • Institute Staff

Hockey is usually associated with New England, Minnesota, or Michigan. But it turns out children in East Harlem want hockey, too—so the Sports & Society Program helped bring it to them. In the program’s State of Play: Harlem report, kids said they had a high interest in playing hockey. With support from the Institute, the New York Rangers, the National Hockey League, Ice Hockey in Harlem, the New York City Department of Education, and Columbia University, 13,000 elementary and middle-school students in Harlem will have street hockey during gym class in 2019 and 2020. Each participating school will receive hockey equipment, a curriculum, and training for all phys-ed teachers. “We’re often categorized by the zip code we’re in,” New York State Assembly Member Robert Rodriguez, who grew up in Harlem, says. “We are not the highest-earning community, but we have kids with a lot of energy and passion, and certainly a lot of drive.”

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