Times have changed since the 1950s, an era generally regarded by the standards of the days as the most prosperous in American history. The United States had just won World War II on two fronts and its soldiers had come home to start families, go to school and embark on careers in a work place upgraded by powerful new and emerging technology.
But the era also harbored a darker side – one that a young hockey player from Fredericton, New Brunswick, helped forever change.
When 22-year-old Willie O’Ree took the ice for the Boston Bruins in a National Hockey League game against the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 18, 1958 in the Montreal Forum, he became the first black player to appear in an NHL game — or as headlines of that era proclaimed: the first “Negro” to play in the NHL.
It has since become a watershed moment in history – one that both the NHL and the Bruins formally recognized on the 50th anniversary of O’Ree’s feat with much hoopla.
O’Ree has repeatedly been recognized for his excellence on and off the playing surface since he broke hockey’s color barrier.
As the NHL has evolved over the past 55-plus years, so has its role models. Hockey is now embraced by children of all color; it is no longer a sport played by whites in a narrow band along the United States-Canada border.
Student-athletes within the Sweetwater Union High School District now develop their inline hockey skills at the district-owned rink at Castle Park High School. Team rosters mirror the district’s wide diversity that includes 33 languages.
Much of what we take granted today took a courageous effort from O’Ree when he first took the ice for the Boston Bruins in that game against the Montreal Canadiens. Battling cheap shots from white players of the era and racist remarks from fans, O’Ree was determined not to give up his dream.
His dream has since become the dream of many others.
A day past his 80th birthday, O’Ree will be honored by the newest San Diego pro hockey team to bear the beloved Gulls moniker on Friday, Oct. 16, when the new American Hockey League franchise hosts Willie O’Ree Night in his honor.
The Gulls will play the Bakersfield Condors in a key Pacific Division game that faces off at 7:05 p.m. O’Ree will be honored during a special in-game ceremony between the first and second periods when the AHL team will raise a special banner bearing O’Ree’s No. 20 jersey number to the rafters of the Valley View Casino Center.
O’Ree acknowledged there is no better way to celebrate his 80th birthday “than with the great hockey fans of San Diego and the Gulls organization.”
“I feel privileged and grateful that the new Gulls organization has extended its hand and chosen to honor me,” O’Ree said in a prepared statement. “I have told Gulls management and players that nothing would make me happier than to have current and future Gulls continue to wear No. 20, the number I wore while with the Gulls. I am excited that fans will get to see the great No. 20 both on the ice and in the rafters this year and for years to come.”
Special VIPs in attendance to honor O’Ree include NHL Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr and NHL Vice President of Community Affairs Ken Martin. Fuhr, the first black player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, backstopped the Edmonton Oilers to four Stanley Cup championships (1984-85 and 1987-88)
Fuhr’s 20-year NHL career would not have been possible without O’Ree’s trailblazing efforts.
Gulls team officials lauded O’Ree’s contribution to the modern game.
Gulls President of Business Operations Ari Segal called O’Ree “a trailblazer and international sports icon.”
“While he courageously broke the NHL’s color barrier in 1958, he’s worked tirelessly throughout his life to promote diversity in our sport, and increase access to hockey for people of all races, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds,” Segal stated in a team release. “We feel fortunate to have the opportunity to honor him and celebrate his life and historic career on the day after his 80th birthday.”
Then and now
Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in Major League Baseball 11 years before O’Ree stepped onto the ice at the Montreal Forum and other sports had become integrated in following years. But the NHL of the late Fifties remained a white man’s game – from its players to its coaches and management.
The decision to bring up O’Ree from Boston’s Quebec Aces affiliate was strictly a hockey decision and had nothing to do with race, according to Boston officials. The Bruins needed a third left-winger for a home-and-home series against Montreal and O’Ree was the team’s top man at the position in the organization’s farm system.
He played two games with Boston during the 1957-58 season and was sent back to the minors.
Yet, O’Ree’s call-up had everything to do with race as later years served to prove.
While white Americans glowed in the post-World War II years, black Americans were still subject to widespread discrimination and public segregation. It is ironic that after the United States helped eradicate Hitler’s Nazis and their racial policies in Europe in the costliest war in the history of mankind (both in terms of industrial output and human suffering), not much had changed back home.
O’Ree spent the summer of 1956 at the Milwaukee Braves’ minor league training facility in Georgia as he pondered a decision whether to play professional baseball or hockey. He chose hockey over baseball, but due to the racial segregation policies in effect in the American South at the time, he was forced to ride in the back of a bus on his way home.
He stepped to the front of the line as a hockey pioneer.
The NHL has preserved O’Ree’s history-making moment on a video available for viewing on its website (http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=5530). Drawn from historical photographs and rare vintage film, the 1:28 clip includes a post-game interview with O’Ree conducted by Gord Sinclair Jr. for CFCF, a radio station in Montreal.
In the interview, Sinclair asks an obviously excited O’Ree about playing in his first NHL game with the Bruins.
“It was the greatest thrill of my life, I believe,” O’Ree answers, “I’ll always remember this day.”
O’Ree, like any other player making a call-up from the minors to the NHL, then or now, admitted he was nervous when first taking the ice.
“After a few minutes, I relaxed and became myself out there again,” he explains in the interview.
O’Ree is asked about his linemates — Don McKenney, one of Boston’s most noted players at the time, and Jerry Toppazzini — and about a scoring opportunity O’Ree had in the game.
“I should have shot but I hesitated,” O’Ree responds to the question asked by Sinclair about the near-miss. “I wanted to make a shift and, I just as I did, I was hooked, I should made a shot.”
Surprisingly, the radio interview clip makes no mention of the special significance of O’Ree’s breaking the NHL’s color barrier, nor did the press play up the event, treating it, as O’Ree later referred to it, as more like an “everyday piece of news.”
O’Ree said he experienced some disappointment, as it would have meant more to blacks of that era aspiring to play hockey.
In fact, nearly 14 years would pass before another black player, Mike Marson, appeared in an NHL game. Marson, the second black Canadian to play in the NHL, made his debut with the Washington Capitals in 1974. Marson would later close out his NHL career as a member of the Los Angeles Kings (1979-80).
(Alton White made World Hockey Association history by becoming the first black to play in that league from 1972-75. White also made history as the first player of African descent to score 20 goals in one season, a feat he accomplished in 1972-73 with the Los Angeles Sharks. Also during the 1972-73 season, he became the first black player in history to score a hat trick in a single game.)
Dubbed the “Jackie Robinson of hockey,” O’Ree maintains he was warmly received by his teammates and management in Boston. He was treated by teammates as any other player on the team. There was no black or white in the locker room; you were just a Bruin.
But O’Ree was different in that had lasting impact on professional sports. A year after he made his history-making call-up, the Boston Red Sox signed their first African-American baseball player.
O’Ree was one of 13 children and among just one of two black families in Fredericton. He started skating at 2 and joined a hockey league at 5. He said his being black had no bearing on anything as a child growing up in eastern Canada but that he learned about the color barrier as he grew older.
Hockey was a natural sport to pick up in the geographical region in which he was born. He said during the winter months his father simply squirted a hose in the backyard and there was an “instant rink.”
O’Ree said he decided to be a professional hockey player at 14. As he advanced in the ranks of junior hockey and the minors, many people told him he would never play in the NHL because he was black. However, he did not let that deter his dream.
O’Ree played two more seasons in the minors before being called up to Boston again. He appeared in 43 games for the Bruins during the 1960-61 season, recording four goals and 14 points. Two of the four goals were game-winners.
He recorded another milestone on Jan. 1, 1961, when he became the first black player to score a goal in the NHL. His career in the NHL spanned 45 games — 43 of them at the tail end of that 1960-61 season.
O’Ree admitted he was the butt of racist remarks while playing in the NHL, most notably from fans in the league’s United States-based franchises. (The NHL was then comprised of its original six franchises: Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York Rangers, Toronto and Montreal.)
However, O’Ree said he did not take those remarks to heart. In an article posted in 2007 by NHL.com writer John McGourty, O’Ree stated, “I just wanted to be a hockey player, and if they couldn’t accept that fact, that was their problem, not mine.”
O’Ree was also on occasion the object of cheap shots by white players on other NHL teams. The most notorious event occurred in Chicago when the Blackhawks’ Eric Nesterenko butt-ended O’Ree in the face with a stick, knocking out two of ORee’s teeth and sending blood all over the ice behind the Chicago net. O’Ree responded by hitting Nesterenko in the head with his stick. Both benches emptied onto the ice. Nesterenko later required 15 stitches to close the wound above his right eye.
Despite verbal and physical abuse, O’Ree was determined he wasn’t going to be run off the rink.
O’Ree said hockey helped turn life around for both him and his family. While playing for the Aces – helping leading the team to the 1956-57 championship – O’Ree said he used part of his savings to help his parents buy a house, something he said, he still remains proud of today.
Western horizons
Despite being told he was a value to the team, the Bruins traded O’Ree to Montreal over the ensuing offseason in 1961 and the Canadiens, in turn, sold O’Ree’s contract to the Los Angeles Blades of the Western Hockey League 12 games into the 1961-62 season.
O’Ree would spend the rest of his career in the minors. O’Ree, whose best asset was his speed and ability to quickly pass the puck, led the WHL with 38 goals in 1964-65. After six seasons with the Blades, O’Ree joined the San Diego Gulls in that club’s second year of existence and played with them until the league folded following the 1973-74 season.
It would be in a Gulls uniform that O’Ree would enjoy his biggest fame as a perennial fan favorite. He played in 447games for the WHL Gulls, scoring 350 points.
He had his most productive season in his career at age 33 in 1968-69 when he scored 38 goals to once again lead the league in scoring and tallied a career best 79 points.
When the L.A. Kings came into existence, the Blades folded and O’Ree’s contract was purchased by the fledgling Gulls, who were happy to have him on their roster scoring goals in a San Diego uniform rather than scoring goals against them.
After the WHL folded, O’Ree made San Diego his home, becoming a longtime resident of La Mesa.
He played two seasons of senior hockey for a local semi-pro team, then decided to come out of retirement in 1978-79 at the age of 43 to play 53 games, collecting 21 goals and 56 points, with the San Diego Hawks of the Pacific Hockey League.
After the Hawks and the PHL dissolved, O’Ree hung up his skates for good after a 21-year playing career that included more than 1,200 games with more than 400 goals and nearly 900 points.
Joe Noris, who played in 55 NHL games for Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Buffalo with two goals and seven points to his credit, played alongside O’Ree on the Hawks.
“Willie, to me, was always a class act,” Noris said. “I remember his competitive spirit and also that he was in amazing shape (playing pro hockey at 43). We went horseback riding a couple of times while we were playing with the Hawks.”
While O’Ree had acquired the nickname “Legend” among some players by that time, Noris simply recalled him as a friend. “I just called him Willie,” Noris said.
The two ran into each other frequently during the Gulls’ subsequent 11-year incarnation in the West Coast Hockey League and ECHL. “We would see each other in the stands; it was always great to run into him,” Noris said.
Noris played 25 games with the Gulls during the 1972-73 seaso. Noris had three goals and 16 points, O’Ree appeared in 18 games for the Gulls that season while splitting time between San Diego in the WHL and the New Haven Nighthawks in the American Hockey League. O’Ree had six goals and 11 points in 18 games with the Gulls and 21 goals and 45 pionts in 50 games with New Haven.
Among O’Ree’s teammates with the Nighthawks was goaltender Glenn “Chico” Resch.
Noris, now a roller hockey rink owner in the San Diego region (Skate San Diego in El Cajon), found his fame while playing in the World Hockey Association, most notably for two seasons with the San Diego Mariners (1975-77) where he collected 63 goals and 160 points in 153 regular season games.
Noris also spent time with the AHL Hershey Bears during the 1971-72 and 1972-73 season.
“If we didn’t play together on the Gulls, we certainly played against one another in the American Hockey League,” Noris noted.
Rink vision
While making history as a hockey pioneer, O’Ree also held a secret that would likely have prevented him from breaking the NHL’s color barrier. It was during the 1955-56 season with the Kitchener-Waterloo Canucks that a puck struck him in the right eye and caused him to lose 95 percent of his vision in that eye.
Many have speculated that had it been known at the time that O’Ree would likely not have passed the NHL’s vision test. It has also been speculated that O’Ree’s vision handicap, as it later became known, may have played into O’Ree not being selected in the 1967 NHL expansion draft, thereby obstructing his return to the NHL.
O’Ree compensated for his vision loss by switching from left wing to right wing. The position switch, which came at the suggestion of coach Alf Pike with the Blades, instantly made O’Ree one of the league’s most exciting players and top scorers.
O’Ree noted had he made the position switch earlier while with the Bruins that he might have been able to prolong his stay in the NHL.
But that is all water under the bridge now.
O’Ree remains a celebrated hockey pioneer and his fame – and legacy — continues to grow today. Both Gulls franchises in the International Hockey League and West Coast Hockey League in the 1990s retired O’Ree’s famous No. 20 jersey number.
In 1998, during ceremonies before the NHL All-Star Game, O’Ree was named director of youth development for the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force and an ambassador for NHL Diversity, a position he still holds today. In this role, emphasizing commitment, perseverance and teamwork as core values, O’Ree has aided in introducing the sport of hockey to more than 40,000 boys and girls of diverse backgrounds, and has established nearly 40 local grassroots hockey programs throughout North America.
As part of NHL Diversity, the Willie O’Ree All-Star Game, held each February as part of Black History Month, is named in his honor.
O’Ree was inducted locally into the San Diego Hall of Champions and Breitbard Hall of Fame in 2008. Also that same year, O’Ree was honored by San Diego State University with an award for outstanding commitment to diversity and cross-cultural understanding
In 2010, O’Ree received the Order of Canada, the highest civilian award for a Canadian citizen. He was honored for his contribution both as a hockey pioneer in paving the way for subsequent players of diverse ethnic backgrounds in the NHL and as dedicated youth mentor in both the United States and Canada.
The legendary O’Ree was present at February’s San Diego Hockeyfest when 8,500 fans ringed the arena for the unveiling of the ne AHL team’s name and logo.
Fans’ hockey love affair with the venerable O’Ree continues unabated.
“Old Gulls fans all remember Willie O’Ree,” noted West Hills High School roller hockey coach and former State Assemblyman Steve Baldwin, whose four sons have played both ice hockey and roller hockey while growing up. “We remember his speed, his grace, his support for the San Diego hockey community and how he made history by being the first black player to break the color barrier in the NHL. There’s no doubt Willie has had enormous impact on hockey in the USA.”
In other words, happy 80th birthday, Willie!
For more reading, O’Ree’s autobiography: “The Willie O’Ree Story: Hockey’s Black Pioneer,” is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
A press release was used in the preparation of this story.
American Hockey League Report:
New AHL Gulls honor hockey icon O’Ree, skate to 2-0 start
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 16, 2015 — The San Diego Gulls of the American Hockey League have opened a new chapter in professional hockey in America’s Finest City; they also have not forgotten to honor one of the region’s finest hockey players, longtime La Mesa resident and erstwhile NHL trailblazer Willie O’Ree.
The Gulls honored O’Ree with a special in-game ceremony Friday night during the team’s contest against the Bakersfield Condors. O’Ree, his wife De’jeet and team dignitaries shared a piece of history with cheering fans as the first banner unfurled by the AHL team was unveiled from the rafters of the Valley View Casino Center.
The banner honored the accomplishments of O’Ree, the first player to break the color barrier in the NHL when he took the ice wearing the uniform of the Boston Bruins in a game in Montreal on Jan. 18, 1958. The Bruins won the game 3-0 and, while no screaming headlines of the day announced O’Ree’s history-making feat as the first black man to play in an NHL game, he knew what he had done … even though it would take many decades before that historic event was properly noted.
O’Ree played sparingly in the NHL, but he continued to play pro hockey and entertain fans wherever he went. He played most of his 21-year career in California, including a heralded stint from 1967-1974 with the San Diego Gulls of the Western Hockey League.
O’Ree, never one to shy away from an autograph seeker or turn away for a photograph with a fan, quickly became the Gulls’ most popular player and a San Diego sports icon. He scored 350 points in 447 games in seven seasons for the WHL Gulls after previously playing six seasons for the WHL Los Angeles Blades. He twice led the WHL in scoring.
O’Ree, then 43 but still in immaculate physical shape, came out of retirement during the 1978-79 season to play for the San Diego Hawks of the Pacific Hockey League. He collected 21 goals and 46 points in 53 games while competing against players nearly half his age. The announcement that O’Ree had signed with the Hawks brought an immediate response as hundreds of fans bought tickets for the opportunity to watch him skate again.
It would be 11 years before pro hockey returned to the city with the San Diego Gulls of the International Hockey League, who saw fit to retire O’Ree’s No. 20 jersey. When the San Diego Gulls of the West Coast Hockey League were born in 1995, they also honored O’Ree with a banner in the arena.
It was no different with the AHL Gulls.
Appropriately, Friday’s banner-raising ceremony took place one day after O’Ree’s 80th birthday. He called it a fabulous birthday present from the region’s newest pro hockey franchise.
“It certainly is a pleasure to be here,” O’Ree offered to sustained applause over the arena’s public address system. “I want to thank Ari Segal (Gulls president of business operations), the San Diego Gulls and Anaheim Ducks to mark my birthday and thank this organization for bringing AHL hockey to San Diego.
“I want to thank the Hahn family (former owners of the West Coast Hockey League and ECHL Gulls and arena operators) for its continuing support of hockey and the support of the San Diego fans. It was an honor to play here for eight years (in the WHL and PHL).”
It is apparent the region’s love affair with O’Ree continues to this day. Even before he first took the microphone, he was given a standing ovation from the 8,788 in attendance.
“I thank that Max McNab (original WHL Gulls coach) and Bob Breitbard (original WHL Gulls owner) brought me here to San Diego in 1967 so that I could play for the finest fans I ever had the chance to play for,” he said, his voice briefly cracking with emotion.
Rather than retire O’Ree’s No. 20 jersey, the new Gulls – at O’Ree’s request – have continued to issue it. Gulls winger Nick Ritchie is currently wearing the famous number, and there has to be some magic attached to it.
Ritchie scored the first goal in the Gulls’ AHL debut on Oct. 10 when the team tipped the Grand Rapids Griffins, 4-2, in front of a sellout crowd of 12,920.
The special banner honoring O’Ree – trimmed in the team’s AHL colors – denotes the New Brunswick native as the inaugural inductee in the AHL Gulls’ Ring of Honor.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer declared Oct. 16 “Willie O’Ree Day” in San Diego by order of a special proclamation.
Speakers during Friday’s in-game ceremony included former Edmonton Oilers goaltender Grant Fuhr, a four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Oilers and the first black man elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame (in 2003).
Fuhr lauded O’Ree for his pioneering role in breaking the NHL’s color barrier and his post-playing career role as director for youth development for the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force and an ambassador for the NHL Diversity program.
Fuhr’s storied career would not have been possible without O’Ree’s trailblazing effort, which Fuhr duly noted, calling it an “honor” to be in O’Ree’s presence for Friday’s banner raising ceremony.
“On behalf of all the players past and present, from everyone in the NHL Diversity program, it’s an honor most deserved,” Fuhr personally told O’Ree.
The newest Gulls team also honored O’Ree on his 80th birthday by presenting him with an exciting 6-5 shootout win that sent Gulls’ fans home smiling – and with a bit of history to contemplate.
Taking flight
The Gulls won for the second time on home ice by rallying from deficits of 3-1 and 5-3.
Ritchie scored his third goal of the young season to get the hosts off to a 1-0 lead at the 23-second mark of the first period to place his name beside another team first (fastest goal in team history). However, the visitors had other ideas and quickly erased the giddy mood by the home crowd by scoring three goals of their own to take a 3-1 lead with 5:32 left in the opening period.
But the Gulls placed their fans back in a euphoric mood by scoring the fastest two goals in team history by beating Bakersfield netminder Laurent Brossoit twice in a span of 17 seconds as the hosts salvaged a 3-3 standoff with the Condors through the opening 20 minutes.
Swedish import Max Friberg scored his first goal of the season, with assists to Ritchie and Shea Theodore, at 18:24. Ondrej Kase followed in rapid succession with his first goal of the season at 18:41, unassisted.
Each team would score twice in the second period, with Bakersfield taking a 5-3 lead on goals by California native Matt Ford and Ryan Hamilton before the Gulls responded with a pair of goals by Antoine Laganiere (his second of the season) and Harry Zolnierczyk.
Brandon Montour and Stefan Noesen picked up assists on Laganiere’s goal while Kase and Chris Mueller had the helpers on Zolnierczyk’s tally.
Mike Sgarbossa and Friberg drew the assists on the first goal of the game.
Neither team could score in either the third period or the three-on-three five-minute overtime tiebreaker to necessitate the shootout – another team first. The Gulls out-shot the Condors 41-39, including a 5-2 edge in OT while owning a two-minute power play.
John Gibson stopped all three shots he faced in the shootout while San Diego’s Kase scored the lone shootout tally to propel the hosts to the extra point in the standings.
Mitch Moroz, Iiro Pakarinen and Bogdan Yakimov each scored first-period goals for Bakersfield (1-2). Pakarinen and Yakimov’s goals came 33 seconds apart. Brad Hunt finished the game with four assists for the visitors.
The Condors finished the game two-for-two on the power play while the Gulls were scoreless in two man-advantage opportunities.
Gibson finished with 34 saves on 39 shots to improve to 2-0-0 in the San Diego net while Brossoit, who made 35 saves on 40 shots, saw his early season record dip to 1-1-1.
— Phillip Brents
