McKegney, Tony 1958–

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Tony McKegney 1958–

Hockey player

Tony McKegney has always thought of himself as a good hockey player. But most of the world has seen him as a good, black hockey player, one who has lasted longer and achieved more than virtually any other black player in the history of the National Hockey League (NHL). Because he is black, McKegney has operated under a different set of standards and perhaps a different set of circumstances in his professional career than most other players.

As a black hockey player in a predominantly white sport, McKegney has had to suffer the indignities of racial abuse from fans and opposing players as well as dubious treatment from management. Though not placed among the greats of the game, his career has been a long and productive one. His longevity is unique compared to other black players who have experienced combative receptions and short, undistinguished careers. McKegney has scored more goals, 303, than any other black player in history.

Though always a potent offensive player, it was perhaps McKegney’s strength of character that was the most impressive aspect of his career. Without his internal fortitude and persistence, he may have succumbed earlier to the pressures, criticism, and loneliness that are part and parcel of the experience of the black hockey player in the National Hockey League.

Tony McKegney was bom in Montreal, Quebec, in February of 1958 to a Nigerian father and Canadian mother. His father eventually returned to Nigeria, and when Tony was a year old, he was adopted by the McKegneys, a white couple that lived in Sarnia, Ontario. Tony’s adoptive father, Larry McKegney, was a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force and was stationed in India, where he was touched by the suffering of the countless abandoned and sick children in the streets. The McKegneys, who had three biological children, decided to adopt three less privileged children, including Tony. “She did it for me, I’m sure,” Tony once acknowledged to Shelby Strother of the Detroit News, explaining his feelings about his natural mother putting him up for adoption. “So that I could know a mother and father and family situation.”

Indeed, Tony speaks of an almost idyllic childhood during which he played numerous sports with his siblings, particularly hockey in the outdoor rink that their father had built in their backyard. “I started playing [hockey] when I was four,” he recalled in the Detroit News, “and there were

At a Glance…

Born in February of 1958, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; son of a Nigerian father and Canadian mother; adopted by Larry McKegney (a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot) and his wife.

Professional hockey player, 1979—. Began as an amateur with Kingston Canadians, Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), 1976-78; played with Buffalo Sabres American Hockey League affiliate, 1978-79; professional player in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, 1979-84; Quebec Nordiques, 1984-85, and 1989-90; Minnesota North Stars, 1985-87; New York Rangers, 1986-87; St. Louis Blues, 1987-89; Detroit Red Wings, 1989; and Chicago Blackhawks, 1990-91; professional player in Europe, 1992—.

Awards: Member of the OHA All-Star team, 1976-77 and 1977-78.

always older kids. You always had to be a little bit better than you should be. As kids we played all the time. All sports. It was great, a good way to grow up. I was a pretty good pitcher in baseball too.”

Growing up in Sarnia, a town of some 50,000 people, Tony does not remember experiencing any racial prejudice. The only time he noticed being treated differently was when the family would cross the border into Detroit, Michigan, to attend a hockey or baseball game. In a 1986 New York Times article, McKegney described how his family would sometimes feel uncomfortable when in Detroit. “People looked at us and thought we were odd, but as a child I accepted it as the norm.”

But the most normal thing for Tony was playing hockey. As a youth he showed exceptional talent and was eventually considered for the professional ranks. When the Birmingham Bulls of the World Hockey Association (WHA) drafted Tony in the mid-1970s, it looked as if he would finally be making it as a pro. But ugly racial threats in Alabama made him change his mind about the WHA, a league that would eventually cease operations a few years later. McKegney remained an amateur with the Kingston Canadians of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), where he scored 101 goals in only 121 regular-season games over a span of two years—1976-77 and 1977-78—and was named to the OHA All-Star team each year.

Began Professional Career

By 1978 Tony had been drafted by the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL and was sent to the team’s minor league affiliate in Hershey, Pennsylvania. But after scoring 21 goals in 24 games in the American Hockey League, it was time for him to be brought up to the NHL. “I was a scorer,” was how he described himself in the New York Times. “That’s basically how I thought of myself as a hockey player.”

What scouts and coaches saw was a big, tough player by hockey standards—he measured in at 6’1” and weighed 200 pounds—who, although he had a unique skating stride, had surprising speed and was basically a good offensive player. As Mark Everson wrote in the New York Post. “He is more noticeable for his skating stride than anything else. Fluid, it’s not. ‘I’m really bow-legged, which affects it. When I was younger, I had a coach who stressed that skating in hockey is like running in track. He said when you start, you should be up on your toes,’ McKegney recalled. ‘Because of that, I have a half-running, half-skating stride. But it gets the job done, that’s all that’s important.”’

During his five years on Buffalo’s team, McKegney played in almost all of the games and continued to score goals, netting 127, including 30 scored in only two seasons. But in 1984 McKegney was traded to the Quebec Nordiques as part of a deal that involved six players. It was a situation that McKegney would later get used to, as he would face being traded six more times throughout his NHL career.

Leading Scorer for New York Rangers

McKegney spent a year and a half in Quebec before he was sent to the Minnesota North Stars. He arrived in Minnesota with less than 30 games left to play in the 1984-85 season and never had a chance to establish himself there; after only 11 games into the 1986-87 season, he was traded again, this time to the New York Rangers, where he became the first black player in that franchise’s history.

Upon McKegney’s transfer to New York, the Rangers’s general manager Phil Esposito was criticized for the trade by skeptics who pointed to McKegney’s sagging offensive output in Minnesota. But Esposito stood by the move, citing that McKegney was an effective offensive player but wasn’t given the same opportunities in Minnesota that he would get in New York. Esposito was right. McKegney made an immediate impact, scoring 14 goals in his first 14 games. A New York Post reporter opined that the player was “threatening to earn a nickname of McKetzky,” a reference to Wayne Gretzky, the record-setting scorer of the Los Angeles Kings, then of the Edmonton Oilers. Many of McKegney’s goals came in groups during that 14 game streak. He had one four-goal game and three two-goal games. “The most I’d ever scored was 10 in 15 games,” McKegney commented in the New York Post. “The way I feel now, I think I can score in every game.”

McKegney had trouble at the end of that year, though, and his lack of productivity during the playoffs was cited as the reason he was traded again, this time to the St. Louis Blues. It was the subsequent 1987-88 season that turned out to be his most successful. Playing full time on the power play, McKegney scored 40 goals and added 38 assists, the resulting 78 total points being his highest as a professional hockey player. He also finished that year with a plus/minus rating—a measure of his overall productivity according to a scale on which any positive number is considered good—of 10.

McKegney’s next year in St. Louis was a disappointment, though, and led to another trade. Discontented with the way he was being handled by the St. Louis coaching staff, he saw the move to the Detroit Red Wings—a team he used to root for as a boy—as a sort of homecoming. At the time of the trade, McKegney explained to Shelby Strother in the Detroit News that trades could always be seen two ways: although one team may want to get rid of a player, the other team covets his services. McKegney did not, at this time, believe that his race had anything to do with the trades. “Obviously I’m black,” he said, “but no; I just don’t think that’s been the case.” He would later give the notion more thought.

McKegney lasted only 14 games in Detroit before he was sent back to Quebec for his 12th season, during which he managed to score 18 goals in 62 games between the two teams. Traded to the Chicago Blackhawks during the 1990-91 season, he was playing in Europe in 1992 and had tentative plans to return to the NHL one day as a member of an expansion team. As he moved through his career, he became known among managers for his rare leadership qualities, something that every team needs in order to compete successfully in the NHL. His maturity, levelheadedness, and persistence were viewed as the ribbon on top of the Tony McKegney package.

Acknowledged Racism in the NHL

In a 1990 New York Times article in which writer Joe Sexton chronicled the experience of blacks in the NHL, McKegney acknowledged that there were various forms of racism in the league, but downplayed its effect on him as a player. “[Racism in the NHL] is suppressed more than it’s policed,” he told Sexton, “and sure, it results in a small bit of loneliness. But you can’t dwell on it. It’s tough enough to survive in the game as a player. Besides, it’s a cakewalk compared to what Jackie Robinson went through with the Dodgers in baseball. I will, though, go so far as to say that I often think about how it is that I’ve been traded six times in my career.”

Although he has encouraged people to think of him as a hockey player first, McKegney has never downplayed his black heritage. He studied the legacy of blacks in North America, learning about the Underground Railroad—a system by which slaves in the southern United States escaped to the North in the 1800s—and he could recite all the places the former slaves fled to in Canada aboard the Freedom Train. He is also well versed in pioneers of black culture, including people like Robinson.

“I never thought so much about my being black until I played professional hockey,” McKegney, who for three years was the only black in the NHL, told Strother in the Detroit News. “Someday I will be known as a hockey player.” But that sentiment is not inconsistent with his awareness of his role as a black player; he has been involved in many community programs to help underprivileged black children. In St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, McKegney used to work with inner-city kids, teaching them to play hockey. He described the experience to Strother: “When we started the kids had to use aluminum walkers to just stand up on skates. Four months later we were scrimmaging. Without us they wouldn’t have had a chance to play hockey, and that was very satisfying.”

McKegney often receives fan mail from kids, many of whom are black. “They say they get inspiration from me,” he told Strother. “They say they never knew anything about hockey before…. They tell me that they have started playing. Hockey is a beautiful game and I’m proud if I am responsible for exposing that fact to youth. If the fact that I’m black helped catch someone’s attention, then that’s good, too.”