Black people in hockey are rare today, but Jarome Iginla is changing that. Change is good, but… Black people in hockey are rare today, but Jarome Iginla is changing that. Change is good, but not when it involves frivolous legal battles, such as the one Maurice Clarett is undertaking. And then there is Ron Artest, who is reaching for change in his pocket.

One giant skate for mankind.

Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla, whose father, Elvis, is from Nigeria, has led his team to the Stanley Cup Finals as a sixth seed out of the Western Conference. He is succeeding in a sport that is, for the most part, inaccessible to the black population. It is a sport that is losing the interest of Americans as well, and the NHL is trying to expand its wings and diversify the league.

The league made an attempt to make hockey more popular in the urban areas by advertising NHL jerseys as urban wear. One example is rap artist Nelly wearing a St. Louis Blues jersey in his music video.

The NHL is going about it the wrong way. Rather, what the NHL should do is market its young, star players — like Iginla.

Iginla is the perfect poster-boy for a more diversified NHL. This postseason, he has led the league in goals with 12 and notched eight assists. During the regular season, he sent 41 pucks to the back of the net and assisted on 32 goals. His regular-season goal total was tied for first in the league.

The other two players who scored 41 goals were Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers and Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets — both are younger than I.

Together, these young stars and Iginla have a chance to inspire America’s youth into playing hockey — including the black population. With Iginla’s success, black athletes now have a hockey figure to look up to, just as kids did with Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice.

Is the draft over yet?

And now, waiting to be picked in the 2004 NFL Draft is Maurice Clarett, of the Ohio State Buckeyes.

I’d bet NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would love to go in front of a national television audience and say that with a smile on his face.

Clarett is still fighting the courts, and by the time he gets through with that, he’ll be ready to retire from the NFL.

It’s ridiculous, because next year he will be three years removed from high school and finally eligible for the NFL draft. He should have just stayed in school and kept playing, but he decided to do things the hard way.

Clarett’s several appeals have all been struck down and he is now appealing again. For his sake, I hope he’s as much a success in the NFL as he is an annoyance to America’s legal system, for he is going to have to make some big bucks in the NFL to pay the lawyer and court fees.

That or hope his old buddy LeBron James can toss him a few extra bucks.

Well, there is one other option. He could lie to his insurance company about the value of items stolen from his car.

Wait, that’s how this whole mess got started.

Birds up!

Comedian Dane Cook once asked an audience who came up with the use of the middle finger as an obscene gesture and why.

I still cannot explain the why, but my guess on the who would be Ron Artest. Only because he spent another $10,000 showing off his favorite digit in Indiana’s game two loss to the Pistons last week. After hitting a jump shot, Artest rambunctiously gave the crowd two fingers up.

This is his second fine of the playoffs this year. He was also fined earlier in the season for an elbowing incident, but all of his actions this year are quite mild when compared to his five league suspensions and one team suspension last season.

It must be noted, all incidents aside, that Artest is a pretty good basketball player, averaging 18.3 points during the 2004 regular season, so why does he continue to act up in such a fashion that makes it unrealistic for young fans to look up to him?

I’m afraid if we asked Artest to answer that we’d only see a few fingers in return. Perhaps he should have a word with Mr. Iginla. He’d be able to show him a thing or two about being a role model, and drop the gloves if need be.

I’d take Iginla with a knockout in the first round, and Clarett to appeal the knockout.

Jimmy Johnson is the assistant sports editor of The Pitt News and he’s a young, rising star who’ll appeal to any court in this nation by doing his best Ron Artest impersonation. He can be reached at [email protected].