The career of Willie O’Ree, the “Jackie Robinson of the NHL”

William Eldon “Willie” O’Ree, “the Jackie Robinson of the NHL,” first suited up and sported the spoked-B in a regular-season game against the Montreal Canadiens for the Boston Bruins on Jan. 18, 1958.

A call-up from the Quebec Aces of the Quebec Senior Hockey League, an amateur Canadian hockey program, the then-22-year old (and secretly legally blind in one eye) O’Ree played in two games for Boston before being sent back down to the minors.

Two years later, during his second stint with the B’s in the 1960-61 NHL season, O’Ree skated in 43 NHL games and recorded 14 points (four goals and 10 assists). However, that same season in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks, O’Ree was verbally assaulted with a racial slur by Blackhawks defenseman Eric Nesterenko. Immediately thereafter, the Bruins winger was viciously butt-ended in the face by Nesterenko’s stick, which left him with a broken nose and two knocked out front teeth.

Already incensed by the unrelenting racist behavior of the Chicago players and their fans, O’Ree retaliated by hitting Nesterenko on the head with his stick. According to O’Ree, the act nearly caused a riot and was lucky to leave the building alive.

After those 43 games, however, the Bruins traded him to the Montreal Canadiens who, at the time by O’Ree’s recollection, were managed by racists as the team never even invited him to compete for a roster spot.

By 1961, O’Ree’s playing days in the National Hockey League were effectively over. A career that saw parts of only two seasons. 45 career games. A blind right eye. A broken nose. Two missing front teeth.  Unending racist jeers, insults and death threats by opposing fans, players, and coaches. An untold number of unjustified cheap shots and, of course, the near constant on-ice attempts to end his playing career (or life) on any given shift.

Yet, O’Ree miraculously came out of that crucible with little to no public bitterness and went on to play for another 14 years in the Western Hockey League, one of Canada’s top amateur hockey associations.  And while there, the 5-foot-11 and 175 pounds one-eyed winger helped himself to 639 points (328 goals and 311 assists) in 785 regular-season games as well as 53 points (25 goals and 28 assists) in 55 postseason contests.

Then finally, in 1979, Willie O’Ree retired from ice hockey at the age of 43 with the San Diego Hawks of the now long since-defunct Pacific Hockey League.

But, thankfully, that is when O’Ree’s even longer than long journey to spread the game of hockey to more Black and Brown fans – like myself – eventually soon began.