Four years ago, the NHL and USA Hockey got together to form the Diversity Task Force, designed to coax economically disadvantaged kids in inner-cities across North America onto the ice.

It enlisted Willie O'Ree, the first player of African descent to play in the NHL, hockey's Jackie Robinson, to oversee the program, traveling from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Coconut Grove, Fla.

But is its mission all that altruistic?

The formula seems simple enough: Put a kid on the ice, give him a stick and a puck, then sit back and wait for the turnstiles to start spinning with minorities at an NHL arena near you. Eventually the homogeneous sea of white faces, both on the ice and in the stands, will become a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic rainbow.

And the NHL, long the fourth of the four major professional leagues, will begin to reaping the rewards of fuller arenas and higher TV ratings.

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