Willie O’Ree

Willie O’Ree was born in the small coal mining town of Fredericton, New Brunswick in Canada, the youngest of thirteen children. He was very driven both academically and in athletics. He explained that there were only two Black families in the town when he was growing up. As such, he competed in sports against white competition and as he excelled, he began believing that he could compete at pro levels. He began playing organized hockey at the age of five because “that was the thing to do in the winter. Everything freezes over, the ponds, rivers, creeks. Every chance I had, I was on the ice. I even skated to school. My Dad squirted the garden hose on the back yard, and we had an instant rink.”

After graduating from the New Brunswick Amateur Hockey Association, he joined the York County Hockey League’s Fredericton Merchants. Playing in only six games in the 1951-1952 season, he scored 10 goals and had four assists. He spent the next few seasons shuttling back and forth between the Fredericton Capitals Junior and Senior league teams, leading his team to the 1954 Allan Cup tournament, registering seven goals and eleven assists. He joined the Quebec Junior Hockey League’s Quebec Frontenacs in 1954-55 and led them to the 1955 Memorial Cup tournament, scoring 27 goals with 17 assists in 43 games.

He also competed in baseball and was a good enough shortstop and second baseman that the Milwaukee Braves invited him to train at one of their minor league facilities in Waycross, Georgia in the United States. Although he preferred a career in hockey over baseball, he travelled to the camp in order to keep his legs in shape. This was his first experience traveling to the segregated south and he was forced to deal with the racism that was prevalent in the Jim Crow south, a type of racism that he had never experienced in Canada. “I flew into Atlanta and when I get off the plane, the first thing I see is restrooms marked ‘white only’ and ‘colored only.’” While in the United States, he had the opportunity to meet baseball star Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn in 1949. “I knew he broke the color barrier and when I actually met him, he said, ‘There’s no black kids that play hockey.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, there’s a few.’ Robinson told him “Whatever sport you choose, work hard and do your very best. Things will work out for you.”

The Braves sent O’Ree back to Canada to get more seasoning. When he returned home, he played for the Kitchener-Waterloo Canucks, an Ontario Hockey Association junior league team. One afternoon, after being cross-checked by an opposing defenseman, he was struck in the eye by a puck which ricocheted off of a stick. His retina was shattered and this resulted in the loss of 97% of the vision in his right eye which had to be removed years later. O’Ree was advised to quit in hockey but he was back on the ice eight weeks later, keeping the injury from the attention of his team and fellow players. Since he was a left wing, the injury would make it difficult to keep track of the puck coming into him from his blind side. He was forced to turn his head all the way towards his right shoulder to track it with his left eye. He eventually switched to right wing but this was unnatural to him, being a natural left handed shooter, because it forced his to take passes in on his backhand. But O’Ree adjusted his game and adapted to his new position, never informing anyone of the injury. He knew that if they found out that he was blind in one eye, he would never be permitted to play professionally. He always feared his injury would be discovered. “I never took an eye exam in all the 21 years I played. I never sat in front of an eye machine. I don’t know why back then they didn’t make me… I kept my fingers crossed all those years hoping that nobody would find out. I just played and eventually forgot about it.”

In 1956, O’Ree signed with the Boston Bruins minor league affiliate the Quebec Aces, signing a $3,500.00 contract with a signing bonus of $500.00. He scored 22 goals with 12 assists in his first season and the Aces went on to win the Quebec Hockey League championship that year. After the 1957-1958 season, he was called into the Aces office and told that he had been called up to the Boston Bruins and was to meet the team in Montreal to play against the Canadians on January 18, 1958. Boston was short a wing on the team because of an injury and the team called up O’Ree just to fill that spot for two games. This broke the color barrier in the National Hockey League. Never before had a Black player stepped on the ice.

O’Ree becoming the first Black player in the NHL was not regarded as important at the time as he was sent back down to the Aces after only two games. “I was expecting a little more publicity. The press handled it like it was just another piece of everyday news. I didn’t care that much about publicity for myself, but it could have been important for other blacks with ambitions in hockey. It would have shown that a black could make it.” After the 1959-1960 season, he was called up to the Boston Bruins squad again and played in 43 games. He was treated pretty rough from fans and opposing players. “Guys would take cheap shots at me, just to see if I would retaliate… They thought I didn’t belong there. When I got the chance, I’d run right back at them. I was prepared for it because I knew it would happen. I wasn’t a great slugger, but I did my share of fighting. I was determined that I wasn’t going to be run out of the rink.” The abuse was so bad that during one game, Chicago Blackhawks center Eric Nesterenko hit him in the face with the butt-end of his hockey stick, knocking out two of his teeth and breaking his nose. O’Ree responded by hitting Nesterenko over the head with his stick. This set off a brawl between the teams, Nesterenko had to get fifteen stitches in his head.

The fans treated O’Ree just as bad. “Racist remarks from fans were much worse in the U.S. cities than in Toronto and Montreal. I particularly remember a few incidents in Chicago. The fans would yell, ‘Go back to the south’ and ‘How come you’re not picking cotton.’ Things like that. It didn’t bother me. Hell, I’d been called names most of my life. I just wanted to be a hockey player, and if they couldn’t accept that fact, that was their problem, not mine… In the penalty box, stuff would be thrown at me, and they’d spit at me… I never fought one time because of racial remarks. I fought because guys butt-ended me and speared me and cross-checked me. But I said, ‘If I’m going to leave the league, it’s because I don’t have the skills or the ability to play anymore. I’m not going to leave it ’cause some guy makes a threat or tries to get me off my game by making racial remarks towards me.’”

O’Ree was well liked by his teammates and the Boston fans. Coach Schmidt stated “he always had a smile, no matter what was happening, and he was a very brainy player, always highly regarded by his teammates and the higher-ups.” Former teammate Bronco Horvath added “he never complained, and I was always complaining. Not Willie. A real team man… “If there were slurs about him, we had guys on our Bruins, guys like Fern Flaman and Leo Labine, which would go right after them.”

After the season’s end, Coach Schmidt complimented O’Ree, telling reporters that “Willie’s got all the equipment a good professional needs and some splendid natural advantages… I hope he’ll be with us a long time.” But six weeks later, he received a telephone stating he had been traded to the Montreal Canadians. O’Ree never received an explanation from the team about why he was traded. Montreal was one of the best teams in the league and was stocked with talent so he was not surprised when he was assigned to the Canadians minor league team, the Hull-Ottawa Canadians. He never played in the NHL again.

O’Ree went on to play for the Los Angeles Blades of the Western Hockey League in 1961 for the team for six seasons. He won the league scoring title in 1965 and 1969 and was named to four all-star teams. He then played for the San Diego Gulls, San Diego Charms, and then finally with the San Diego Hawks, retiring at the end of the 1978-1979 season. He was honored in 1984 with induction into the New Brunswick Sports hall of Fame.

Although no Black players made it to the National Hockey League for another 26 years when Mike Marson was drafted by the Washington Capitals in 1974, O’Ree made an impact on the NHL. In 1998, the National Hockey League approached him about becoming the director of the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force, a non-profit program aimed at increasing minority participation in youth hockey. The NHL created the Willie O’Ree All-Star Game in 1997 which pits coed teams against one another in conjunction with other NHL activities. In 1998, he was named the director of youth development for the NHL’s diversity program, giving clinics and speaking at schools in hopes of introducing hockey to a generation of children who might never have played it before. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, acknowledged the impact O’Ree has made on the “40,000 children” he has met. “He has a resolve and an inner strength that allows him to do what he believes and not let anything get in his way.”

Since then, the NHL has honored O’Ree’s success. In 2000, he was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy, an annual award presented for outstanding service to hockey in the United States. The City of Fredericton named a sports complex after him the same week and he was honored during the NHL all-star game on January 28, 2008. On October 29, 2008, he was presented with an Award for Outstanding Commitment to Diversity and Cross Cultural Understanding by San Diego State University and inducted into the Breitbard Hall of Fame later that year. On June 28, 2011, O’Ree was honored again at TD Garden with the Hockey Legacy Award. His biggest acknowledgement was the presentation of the Order of Canada, awarded to him by Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada. It is the highest civilian award given to a Canadian citizen.