St. Paul law student shares love of hockey to encourage more kids of color to play

On meeting Anthony Walsh, it's impossible not to immediately like the 28-year-old with a beaming smile.

Adopted as an infant in Washington, D.C., and raised in hockey-mad Minnesota, he grew up playing the sport. Walsh, who is Black, faced racist comments from other teams' players, but the fortitude and drive that's helped him through law school also steeled him to stay the course on the hockey rink.

Now, he hopes his book "Hockey Is for Everybody" helps children of color discover the joys of the game and the strength within themselves.

Eye On St. Paul recently met with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law third-year student — who is the son of Star Tribune staffers Paul Walsh and Pam Huey — to learn how writing has helped him become "the person you needed when you were younger." This interview was edited for length.

Q: After coming to Minnesota, where did you go to school?

A: Seed Academy/Harvest Prep. Then we moved from Minneapolis to Edina and we open enrolled into the Hopkins school district. My parents wanted us to be around more diversity.

But I transferred back to Edina for seventh grade, and I graduated from Edina High School. After that, I went to Bethel [University] for about three months and was on the hockey team there. But before the season, I left to go play Junior A [hockey] in Canada for a full year. I had a chance to live in another country and meet new people — in Steinbach, Manitoba, and Brockville, Ontario. I went to [the University of North Dakota] after that.

Q: You were 6 weeks old when you were adopted. Why was it important to you to find your biological family?

A: It was important to know who I am, where I come from. To see somebody that looks like me. You have all these questions that some people never get to ask.

Q: Tell me about the book.

A: This is a children's book. But it's a true story. I'm bringing life experience to this little book that people can give to their kids.

Q: Why did you write it?

A: What had happened was things were going well in my life. I'd found my [biological] family. Things were amazing. Then George Floyd was murdered. If he hadn't been in Minneapolis, maybe I wouldn't have done this. I kept thinking: This could have been me under other circumstances.

Q: Who's your audience?

A: Me. I wrote it for me, growing up. I have a line at the end by Ayesha A. Siddiqi that says, "Be the person you needed when you were younger." I had an interview where I was asked, "Why don't we have more African Americans playing hockey?" Because we don't have African Americans playing hockey. Maybe one day they'll see a Black kid in "Hockey Is for Everybody" and they'll say, "I want to play hockey."

Q: What year are you in law school?

A: I will be graduating from Mitchell Hamline in about two months.

Q: What then? What are you interested in?

A: At one point, I wanted to become a lawyer and fight injustice. ... But then I thought, "Why work anywhere else when I can make a difference in my own backyard?" After George Floyd happened, I asked, "How do we stop it? How do we keep this from ever happening again?"

[The book] gives me a platform.

Q: Are you going to take the bar exam?

A: I plan to, but at the moment I am supposed to coach at a hockey camp at St. Cloud State University. It's called the Hockey for Everybody Camp. I plan to take the bar after that.

Q: Are you going to be a lawyer who writes or a writer who has a law degree?

A: At the moment, a writer who has a law degree. I want to use the platform that's been developed to springboard into [writing]. Storytelling. I've had people come up to me and say, "I didn't feel confident in my own story until I heard yours." I'm just going to keep on telling stories.

People have shared their [painful] experiences with me. I know what that's like. But I have had positive ones and I want to have that narrative out there. I struggled, but I have come out on the other end.

Q: What's the next book?

A: It's called "Hockey Is for Everybody: Anthony Goes to Camp." Jason is the antagonist in the first book. In the second book, Anthony and Jason go to summer camp and you see they develop a friendship. They know what the problem was, but they move forward from that.

Q: What message do you want readers to take away?

A: Hockey is for everybody, but, well, everything is for everybody. There's no space that's exclusive. That you can't be kept from a space because you look a certain way.

Q: What's your best hockey memory?

A: Winning a state championship with all of my friends growing up. Another would be winning a Park Board championship [coaching] for North Commons.

Then there was having a young kid come up to me at the Little Wild Hockey Is For Me camp. He'd never skated before, and after a month, he was flying around the ice. He's now a hockey player. He's got dreads and all this stuff, but he's becoming a fantastic hockey player.