St. Paul civil rights advocate Debbie Montgomery, as soon as a speed-skating whiz, revels in grandson’s hockey success – Twin Cities

Debbie Montgomery recalled the time she was invited to try her hand at the Blue Line Speed ​​Skating Club in St. Paul’s Highland Park. A determined skater, Montgomery competed against future Olympian Mary Meyers, one of the best in the sport, and more than asserted herself.

“I beat her two out of three runs,” said the former St. Paul councilor, pointing to the skin on the back of her hand. “(But) they didn’t take colored people with them. They had no intention of letting me in. ”

Meyers won a silver medal in the 500 meter competition at the 1968 Olympics, and Montgomery became a civil rights activist and the first black woman in the St. Paul Police Department. She eventually retired as senior commander before serving as assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety in the 1990s.

She would later serve a single term on St. Paul City Council before being deposed by Melvin Carter III in 2007. In 2014, the city council named a section of Marshall Avenue after her.

There would be no Olympic glory for her, but her love of sports, law enforcement, and ice tearing carried over to her descendants.

The youngest son, Mark Montgomery, a graduate of St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, joined the National Football League in 1994 as a seventh-round pick for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Eldest son Matthew Montgomery, who also retired from law enforcement, attended St. Mary’s College in Winona, where he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for leading the hockey team to an NCAA tournament. It was an illustrious ice hockey career, but growing up in St. Paul suffered the humiliation of racial ridicule more than once as he literally ran past the competition.

“People would yell insults and that is in Minnesota,” said Montgomery. “I don’t remember where we were, but someone yelled ‘watermelon man’. It was crazy. I stood in the stands and said, ‘Sorry, this is my son. I don’t yell anything derogatory to your son. ‘ At that time we were the only black family. I told him that if you want to play this sport for white boys, you’d better be good, because I can’t stand here in the stands and let them look pejorative towards you. ”

Matthew remembered playing hockey day and night until he was burned out. “I didn’t start skating until I was 12, so I always felt like I was catching up with the boys in Minnesota,” he said on a phone call from his Maryland home. “I tell my sons, ‘Don’t exercise too much. Take care of your body. ‘”

Matthew, a US hockey certified coach, served in the CIA after college and retired from the Prince George County Police Department in Maryland while instilling his love for the game in his two boys.

It’s Matthew’s oldest son who is now in the limelight for his hairpins. Barely old enough to vote, 18-year-old Bryce Montgomery was drafted into the National Hockey League by the Carolina Hurricanes last week. Bryce, who had previously bypassed a full drive to Providence College in Rhode Island, had run with the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League for a year until the pandemic ended their games and sent him onto the streets wherever it went during the Ice Age be a scout or a competitive ice age.

The OHL canceled their 2020-2021 season, but the Hurricanes still picked the 6’5, 220-pound defender as the 170th pick in the sixth round, according to the News and Observer.

“I didn’t know where to go mainly because I wasn’t having a season,” Bryce told News and Observer. “Honestly, I was just hoping my name would be called at the end of the day because it was such a dream.”

He’ll skate with the London Knights for about two more years as part of the NHL’s development program, with college getting paid in the US or Canada thereafter if he’s not playing under a signed contract. “It was a win-win-win situation,” said Matthew Montgomery on Wednesday. “When Bryce plays in London, Ontario, he plays in front of about 10,000 people.”

What does Debbie Montgomery think of her skate legacy?
St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith, left, speaks about Debbie Montgomery, the first female police officer to be recruited, hired and trained by the St. Paul Police Department, when she was given a ceremony in St. Paul on May 3, 2016 is honored. Montgomery’s rookie photo and plaque are now on a wall in the Western District headquarters of the St. Paul Police Department. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

There are opportunities for her children’s children that she never had, but it is her grandson’s attitude as well as his talent on the ice that impresses her.

“He’s such a gentleman,” she said on Monday.