Rapper Snoop Dogg says he has plans to grow hockey in the U.S. if he becomes a part-owner of the Ottawa Senators.
“I’ve been watching hockey for about 25 years now, and I’m watching more and more kids that look like me play the game, but I’m not seeing it being offered to the kids over here in America,” he told ESPN’s First Take on Tuesday.
“This opportunity came …for me to be a part of the ownership of the Ottawa Senators, so I jumped on it.”
Snoop made the remarks a day after he publicly announced that he’s part of Los Angeles entrepreneur Neko Sparks’s bid for the Senators.
Snoop said along with buying the Senators, the group plans to start a Snoop Youth Hockey League outside of Canada.
“The kids need to know there is an option to play hockey if you look like me,” he said.
The rapper founded his Snoop Youth Football League, which he said has sent more than 20,000 kids to Division I schools, in 2005. Many of them come from gang-riddled, poverty-stricken communities, he said.
“If we was to bring another sport, such as hockey, which is on TV and they can see it, now these kids can learn how to play the sport. They can understand that this is another way out,” he said.
Sparks and his group would be the first Black-led ownership group in the NHL. Snoop said he believes a Black-led ownership group would “change the face of hockey.”
The news of Snoop’s interest in the Senators was first reported by The Athletic.
He joins another A-list celebrity, Ryan Reynolds, as a prospective owner of the Senators. Multiple reports say May 15 is the deadline for final bids.
Reynolds has partnered with Toronto-based real estate firm the Remington Group to make a bid. Postmedia has reported that the group is preparing a bid of more than $1 billion to buy the Senators and the Canadian Tire Centre.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in late March that there were about a half-dozen groups seeking to buy the team.
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