This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. Most American sports fans know that in 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Far fewer know Willie O'Ree, a man often called the Jackie Robinson of hockey. Fifty years ago, O'Ree took the ice in Boston Garden as a member of the hometown Bruins and became the first black player in the National Hockey League.
O'Ree's appearance was scarcely noticed at first, but as he toured other NHL cities, he endured taunts and injuries from other players and racial insults from fans. The Canadian-born O'Ree was lightning-fast on his skates. His career is even more remarkable, considering the fact that he played most of it practically blind in one eye. Something most of his coaches and teammates never knew.
O'Ree is now Director of Youth Development for the NHL's Diversity Program. He was honored earlier this year in a ceremony at Boston Garden. He spoke with Fresh Air contributor Dave Davies. Well, Willie O'Ree, welcome to Fresh Air.
You grew up as, if I've read the stories accurately, one of two black families in Frederickton, New Brunswick and Canada, right? That's correct, sir. Town of 10,000 people. And you started skating when?
I started skating at the H2, and I started playing Oregon. I started at the H5, and kind of just played up through the ranks. I had a rink in my backyard, which my dad prepared for me. I used to skate to school, and so basically, I was on the ice every day, and there was obviously the availability of ice.
I'm actually eating your corn flakes with your skates on. Oh, I used to do a lot of things with my skates on. You were fast, right? Is that what made you special?
Yes, I was considered a very fast skater, and I got a lot of breakaways due to the fact that from a dead stop, I could take about four or five strides, and I'd be at top speed, where other players may take seven or eight. The advantage I had was I could break away from my check and position myself to, you know, get in a position to receive the puck and constantly going in and have an opportunity to score goals. So in your teens, you played junior hockey, you do very well, and then I guess you went pro with the Quebec aces in the Quebec Hockey League, right? Right, 1956, 57.
Right, and that was pro that wasn't the National Hockey League, but it was a step below the National League. Was it unusual to be a black man in that league? Yes, there were only two black players playing at that time. There was times when I was the only black player playing in a league, and I just wanted to be accepted as just another player, because at that time I had the skills and the ability to play in the league.
And were you accepted like anybody else? Well, no, not really. I mean, I fought a lot, a racial remarks from fans, players on the opposition, you know, and again, they just tried to kind of goat me and tried to get me off my game, but you know, I tried to stay true and just go out and play. No, it was, I guess during this period of your career, before you made it to the NHL, that you had the injury, which would really affect your career, right?
Tell us about it. Yes, it did. It happened my last year junior, I was playing in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, for a farm team of the Montreal Canadiens. We're playing in Guelph in the junior league, and we didn't wear any helmets, no face shields, no masks.
I get the puck and I'm beside the net and I see, I see one of my defencemen out in the slot area, so I make a fake pass and I go around and I pass the puck out to Kent Douglas. He later on played for the Toronto Mapleys. Put a perfect pass on Kent and he winds up and blasts the puck, and so I go in front of the net for a deflection, and then I went to turn my head around to see what the puck was, and when the shot left the player's stick, it was diverted off a stick and come up and hit me flat over the right eye, broke my nose, broke part of my jaw. And, you know, I dropped down on my knees.
I was still conscious, but I could feel the blood running down my face. The next thing I knew, I placed in an ambulance taken to the hospital, and I was in the hospital for about four or five days. It was what this doctor told me that actually changed my life. His name was Dr.
Henderson, and I'm laying in my hospital bed in the recovery room, and he comes in and he says, Mr. O'Ree, he says, I'm sorry to inform you that you're going to be blind in your right eye. And you'll never play hockey again. The impact of the puck completely shattered the retina, and there was nothing we could do.
Well, I kind of sunk back in my bed and the dreams and goals that I'd set for myself, but one day playing professional and hopefully getting into the National Hockey League, seemingly were gone. But it wasn't the end. You simply refused to accept that, right? I did.
I accepted the fact that I was blind, but I didn't accept the fact that I'd never play hockey again, because the first of all, the doctor, he was a fine surgeon and did everything humanly possible, you know, to save the sight of my eye, but there was too much damage. But he was wrong about the second thing about not playing hockey again, because he didn't know the dream and the goal that I had set for myself. So I got out of the hospital and I started back skating again. And the only difference I could notice about myself is I had this blind spot in my right eye.
I could skate as fast as ever. I could shoot the puck, do everything I did before. That's a pretty big difference, isn't it? Oh, yeah.
There was a big adjustment. I'm a left-hand shot and I'm playing left-wing, so to compensate, I had to turn my head all the way around to the right to pick the puck up with my left eye, because I couldn't see it on my right eye. And consequently, I'd always get the puck going in on the net, you know, I'd miss the net to hit the goal post. And you know, I'm saying, what is wrong?
What is wrong? And I just told myself, I said, Willie, don't worry about what you can't see. Just concentrate on what you can't see. So it's in 1958 that you have what's called your Jackie Robinson moment, right?
You get a call from a National Hockey League team at the Boston Bruins. Tell us about that. That's correct. I got the notice to meet the Bruins in Montreal.
To play two games against the Montreal Canadiens on January the 18th, 1958. I stepped on the ice at the Montreal Forum and became the first black player to play in the National Hockey League. Well, let me ask you about this a moment, because you know, when, and everybody's story is different, you know, your story is different from Jackie Robinson, but there's a point of comparison that interests me here. Before he broke into baseball, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, there's been a lot of time talking to him about what he might expect, breaking that color of barrier.
Was there any kind of discussion like that about you being, yeah, tell us about that. Yes. Before I stepped on the ice, we were in the dressing room. The coach, Milchmidt, the general manager at that time, Lynn Patrick, sat me down and they said, well, you know, this is this is the first game that you're going to be playing.
You know, you're going to be the first black player to play in the National Hockey League. You may get exposed to racial remarks on the ice from fans, you know, the opposing team, but don't worry, go out and play hockey. And the Bruin organization is behind you 100%. We'll take care of everything else.
And see, I was no stranger to the Montreal fans because just a week prior to that, I was really already with the complications jersey on, you know. And so, and when I'm skating around on January the 18th Saturday night with the Bruins, I could see several fans pointing in my direction and then they're saying, Oh, there's, there's that black, he's up with the Bruins now. There was no big deal made about it. Nothing in the papers saying that O'Ree broke color barrier first of his race to play in the National Hockey League.
We were very fortunate that we beat Canadians that night, three nothing, we shut them out. We get on the train after the game, the Montreal Canadiens had their car, the Boston Bruins had their car. We go to Boston and play there on Sunday and the Canadiens beat us five to three. And then I go back to go back to to finish up the season.
We're seeing with Willie O'Ree the first black player ever to play in the National Hockey League. He's currently the Director of Youth Development for the NHL's diversity program. We'll talk more after a break. This is fresh air.
If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Willie O'Ree, he is the National Hockey League's Director of Youth Development for its diversity program. He was also 50 years ago, the first black player ever to take the ice in a National Hockey League game. So it was in 1961 when you came back up to the NHL. You were there for 43 games, is that right?
Yes. And so in this case, you're playing your games, you're touring every other city. Tell us what you experienced from other teams. Well, other teams, I never had any problems in Toronto or Montreal because I was a Canadian boy.
And back then, 98% of the players that were playing in the National Hockey were all Canadians. I did experience some problems in Chicago. My first trip into Chicago, there were players that made some racial slurs towards me. But there was one player in particular that I go in and get a shot on the net and the goalie makes a stop and I get the puck.
And I go in behind the net and then I turn one way to come out and I stopped and I went to turn and I passed the puck out into the slot area. And one of the players came on my blind side. I couldn't see him. And he bodended me in the mouth, split my nose, split my lip, knocked my two front teeth out.
And then he just stood there and tied me. He made a couple of racial remarks, but then he just stood there and laughed at me. When you say when you say but ended you mean what? He took the butt end of his stick, you know, the shaft of the stick and he exposed about six inches of it.
And then what he did is he just slammed me, slamming with the stick in the face and knocked my two front teeth out of the slip, broke my nose and my teeth just knocked him out clean. So as I mentioned, he stood there, made a couple of racial remarks. But it wasn't the racial remarks that set me off. It was the the the the laughing that like, you know, he's he was a big big right winger.
Eric Nsterenko, right? Yeah. You come up with that. This incident has been written about widely.
And I don't want I don't want you to offend anybody in the audience. Do you remember exactly what he said to you? Well, it was the N word. Yeah, the N word.
But that that isn't what that sent me off. He just stood there and laughed like, you know, you're not going to do anything. So I had to do something. So I hit him over the head with my stick back then, as I said, we didn't wear any helmets and I cut him for quite a few numbers, stitches right on the forehead.
And then I knew that I was going to have to fight. So immediately I dropped my gloves and my stick broke. He grabbed me and hit me a couple of times and I grabbed him and I got a couple of just light shots. And then the the the the lines went come in.
They break us up. We're both thrown out of the game. I go into the dressing room and they they stitch me up and plug my nose. And I wanted to come back out and sit on the bench, at least with the team.
But Milch Smith, our coach was a he was fearful for my life because he could hear the fans saying if this, you know, if this end player ever comes back out, he says, he's going to have bodily injury to him. Take us back to that moment. I mean, here you are. You finally make it to the NHL.
This guy cheap shots you calls you a racial slur laughs at you, you retaliate your fight and there you are, you're stitched up in a room and you can't even go back out because of the racial hostility that would ring upon you. How did you wonder whether it's all worth it? What were you feeling? You know, you took the words right out of my mouth, Dave.
They had two police officers stand out in front of the guarding the dressing room and I'm pacing back and forth in the dressing room, back and forth. And I turned the lights out in the dressing room and I just sat in the dark for about two, three minutes. And I said, well, it's just not worth it. Why don't you just, you know, you can go back to your hometown.
You can play hockey. You don't need to put up with all this. And then I turned the lights on and I said, now the hell with it. I said, I'm going to leave the league.
I'm going to leave it because I don't have the skills and the ability to play anymore. I'm not going to leave it because some guys is trying to go at me and get me out of the league. So I continue to play. We came back to Chicago on three or four different, you know, occasions and, you know, I obviously anytime that strength was on the ice, I obviously knew where he was and I always got my stick up to protect myself.
But did you ever talk to him about it or have any other encounter with him? Yes. In 1991, the National Hockey League All-Star game was in Chicago. I get a phone call and a letter from the National Hockey League saying that we'd like to invite you and your wife to Chicago for guests of the NHL.
I said to myself, well, why are you inviting me? I haven't played in the league in 30 years. Why would you want to invite me to an All-Star game? They said, well, we realized that you were the Jack of Robinson of hockey and you opened doors and broke down barriers for other players of color to play.
So I went, we go to this function. I saw hockey players that I played with and against for 30 years, ever since I left the league. So my wife wanted the glass of wine. So I go out to the, I go up the head and outside bar out in the lobby area and I go out and the bartender's there.
I sit like a glass of wine and in a laid beer, please. So I'm the only one standing there. Who comes right up beside me? Is Eric Nester Rinkle?
He's standing there and he looks down at me and he says, hi, Willie, how's it doing? I said, fine Eric, how's it going? And then I said, well, let's get it on. If it's been 30 years, but let's get it on.
And I was ready to just go with him right there. But he took his drink and I took the drinks and went back to the table and I saw him a couple of times at the rest of the evening but at a distance. We should add that Eric Nester Rinkle has been interviewed about this by folks who've heard about the, yeah, he doesn't recall the incident. I heard that.
Yeah, he doesn't recall having said anything racial apparently. Yeah, that's what he has said. And that's his version and he has talked to it. Oh, and that's my version.
I'm going to stick to it. You know, when you played with the Bruins back in 1961, there you are playing at the highest level of the game scoring goals. And you're blind in one eye. Did anybody know it?
Did anybody even know it? Well, I told my younger sister Betty who lives in Montreal and I told my friend that I played with this other black hockey player, Stan Maxwell, but I swore them to secrecy. I said, don't say anything. I said, I don't want it to get around because if it does, it'll probably hinder my chance of, you know, getting into the National Hockey League.
So anyway, that was nothing said. Even people today don't realize I played 21 years professional with one eye. But in 1961, I was traded to the Los Angeles blades of the Western Hockey League. And when I arrived in Los Angeles, Alfie Pike was the coach.
And he had only two right wingers and he had about six or seven left wingers. And he says, Willie, have you ever played right wing? I said, no, Alfie. I said, I've always played left wing.
He said, I sure could use your speed on the right side. Why don't you give it a try? So now I move over to the right side and I don't have to be turning my head to the left to pick up the puck because I can see the puck on the plate. And I won the goals scoring twice in 1965 in Los Angeles, the 1969 in San Diego with the San Diego goals.
And I was voted on four All-Star teams only due to the fact that I switched over to the right side and played. You continue to play hockey until 1980. But after you broke the color barrier in the National Hockey League, there wasn't a flood of black players getting into the league. Why do you think there hasn't been more diversity in the NHL?
Well, first of all, hockey is a very unique sport. I mean, you know, you can take a basketball, a football, a baseball, a soccer ball, and you know, you can get in a room and, you know, kick it around and throw it around. But in order to play hockey, you need to get on the ice. You need to get on the ice to develop your skills.
And 99% of the players are the players of color that are playing in the league today. They have the opportunity to get on the ice. And basically, that's what you need. And being involved with the diversity program, we have 39 nonprofit programs throughout North America.
And I can tell you that we're developing more players of color now than ever before. There are more kids playing hockey today than ever before. There are more girls playing hockey today than ever before. Well, Willy O'Ree, thanks, sir.
I'm sharing some memories with us. Oh, it's certainly has been a pleasure, Dave. Willy O'Ree broke the color barrier in the National Hockey League 50 years ago. He spoke with Resher contributor Dave Davies.
Dave is a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News.